
Class \Z\}l 
Book A. 



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COPntlGHT DEPOSm 



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OUR PRESIDENTS 



LIVES OF THE TWENTY-THREE PRESIDENTS 
OF THE UNITED STATES 



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VIRGINIA f: TOWNSEND 



ILLUSTRATED WITH STEEL PORTRAIT OF EACH BY SOME OF THE 
MOST EMINENT AMERICAN ENGRAVERS 




NEW YORK 

WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY 

1889 



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Copyright. 1888, by 
VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND 




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PREFACE. 

On the last day of April, 1889, our country will have had a 
century of Presidents. Yet it is improbable that the majority 
of Americans will, on that day, be aware that it is one of the 
great dates of history. For it will then be a hundred years 
since George Washington took the oath of office as first Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

The great historic scene, with all its circumstances and sur- 
roundings, is familiar to us. We still see the tall, stately 
figure, the grave, striking face, as Washington, " in his dress 
of American manufacture," stood before the awed, breathless 
crowds of that old New York, the chief actor in a drama 
such as the world had never before witnessed. 

It is evident that our first President must have taken his 
oath of office with feelings which could never be wholly re- 
flected by any of those who came after him. 

Yet I think, if he could at that hour have looked down 
the long line of his twenty-one successors, it would have glad- 
dened his soul to know how many of these would make it their 
supreme aim to serve their country — so far as lay in them — 
with his own wise, far-seeing statesmanship, and his own simple, 
patriotic devotion. 

The man or woman to whose lot it shall fall to write the 
biographies of the Presidents of a second century, will, it is 
hoped, find as much worthy of honor and praise, as the author 
of these brief sketches has found. It must also be true in that 
far-off day, as in the present one, that " those who think best 
of men judge them most truly." 

V. F. T. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



George Washington t)lA^.v.V.VlC'^;L i -^ 

John Adams 24 

Thomas Jefferson 59 

James Madison 103 

James Monroe. 123 

John Quincy Adams , 142 ^ 

Andrew Jackson .\ ..' 171 

Martin Van Buren 224, 

William Henry Harrison 232 ^ 

John Tyler 241 

James Knox Polk 248 

Zachary Taylor ..■..{.'. J 254 

Millard Fillmore 263 

Franklin Pierce 269 

James Buchanan 275 

Abraham Lincoln 281 

Andrew Johnson 307 

Ulysses S. Grant 317 

Rutherford Birciiard Hayes 337 

James Abram Garfield 344 . 

Chester Alan Arthur 361 

Grover Cleveland 367 

Benjamin Harrison 37i'^ 



OUR PRESIDENTS. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

It is not impossible that some persons who have heard 
George Washington speak may be aUve at this day. 

As his death, however, took place a fortnight before the 
close of the last century, it is doubtful whether any memory now 
retains an echo of the voice which must have been heard, if at 
all, in the far, dim morning of childhood. 

But while it is true that George Washington died less than 
ninety years ago, we know almost as little of his childhood as 
we do of Shakspere's. 

The few anecdotes which have floated down to us are of 
doubtful authenticity. This fact appears the more singular 
because he Uved in a region where family traditions and records 
are cherished with utmost pride and care. 

One cannot help wishing that some neighbor might have 
had a prescience of the future greatness of that young boy 
who was playing in the Westmoreland meadows. If his stately 
mother, Mary Ball Washington, had only kept a journal of 
those early years of her first-born child ! Or if, long after, it 
had occurred to the wife to take down from her husband's lips 
some of the stories she, at least, must have heard ! For in that 
happy, closing year of his life, when his soul was at peace, and 
no sound of war was in the air, and the two sat around the fire- 
side at Mount Vernon, the heart of the man must have been 



Our Presidents. 



sometimes stirred with memories of his youth. Story and anec- 
dote of one sort and another would be sure to follow. All these 
would have been precious to later generations. But, at that 
time, the pen work of American women was, with rare excep- 
tions, limited to occasional family and friendly letters. 

Every child knows the date of the birthday which gives him 
his first holiday after New Year's. On the winter morning of 
February 22, 1732, George Washington first saw the light in 
the low, steep-roofed home which stood a story and a half high 
on Bridge's Creek, and which was flanked at either end by 
immense chimneys. 

A little later his baby eyes were probably dazzled by the 
flames in which that old roof-tree went down. His earliest 
memories and associations must have centered about the home 
on the Rappahannock, to which his family soon removed. 

George Washington had been born into a good place. He 
came of a stanch, vigorous, energetic English breed. The 
atmosphere in which his childhood opened was a simple and 
wholesome one. 

All the influences about his early years must have been of a 
pure, sound, elevating character. A home where the conscience 
was so early appealed to, and the best instincts developed, 
would not, as in so many instances, leave much for later years 
to painfully and laboriously unlearn. 

His early boyhood must have been a healthy, happy one, 
crowded with hearty, robust activities and sports in the outdoor 
world that lay so fair and vast about him ; the dark, solemn 
wildernesses stretching away to unknown horizons, while the 
great snow-daisied meadow which formed the scene of his 
childish sports sloped down to the swift- glancing, brown-gleam- 
ing Rappahannock. 

When the boy reached his eleventh year death crossed the 
threshold. At that time his father died. Through all his 



George JVasbington. 



busy, crowded life George Washington's memory must often 
have reverted to the day when his mother sat a widow among 
her group of young children, and looked on him, her first-born, 
through her tear-dimmed eyes. He must have felt then— the 
boy always grave and thoughtful beyond his years— a sudden 
access of responsibility. His father's mantle had, in some way, 
fallen on his young shoulders. 

After this time the current of George Washington's life, 
which thus far has flowed hidden and silent among his early 
years, leaps out, a sparkling joyous current, into the sunshine. 

George had two half-brothers — the father having been twice 
married. Laurence, the elder, wedded the young daughter of 
the Fairfaxes. This brought the boy of eleven into family 
relations with all that was most refined and elegant in the old 
colonial society of Virginia. 

The eldest of Augustine Washington's sons inherited the 
fine qualities of his race ; he had the cultivated tastes and habits 
acquired at Oxford, where, after the fashion of the time, he 
had been sent as the eldest son to complete his education. He 
was fourteen years the senior of George, who adored his splen- 
did elder brother, accomplished by study, travel, and foreign 
society. Laurence appears to have been worthy of this admira- 
tion, and the young brother sought to form his own life and 
character after the example constantly before him. 

Laurence inherited from his father, who left large landed 
estates, a noble domain on the banks of the Potomac. It was 
called Hunting Creek ; but Laurence, in honor of the admiral 
under whom he had served in the West Indies, named his estate 
Mount Vernon, little dreaming of the world-wide celebrity it 
was fated to attain. 

At Belvoir, only a few miles distant, the Fairfaxes had their 
home, which, in its luxurious appointments, as well as in its 
domestic and social habits, must have greatly resembled an 



Our Presidents. 



English country-seat of that day. The house was filled with 
gay young Fairfaxes, and George, closely connected with their 
elder sister, made frequent visits to Belvoir as well as to Mount 
Vernon. He lived awhile, too, with Augustine, the younger 
of the half-brothers, and attended Mr. Williams' school. This 
was, no doubt, an improvement on the one to which he had 
been first sent, kept by the sexton, where he had learned to 
read and write, and had studied the rudiments of arithmetic. 

George Washington was intended by his family for a Vir- 
ginia planter ; his education was conducted with sole reference 
to this fact. It was of the most practical kind. Nobody 
appears to have thought of sending the eldest son of the second 
wife of Augustine Washington to Oxford, to follow in the steps 
of his half-brother. George learned early to draw up all varie- 
ties of business documents. In this work he showed remark- 
able skill and thoroughness. His exercise-books, written in a 
large, bold hand, still remain, and are models of their kind. 
What is more remarkable, and more precious still, as furnishing 
a keynote to his character and temperament, are the hundred 
and ten rules on morals and manners which the exercise-book 
contains. 

Some of these rules are of the most minute and painstaking 
kind. They show a deep conscientiousness, and a patience, 
thoroughness, and scrupulous regard for details, most unusual 
in a boy of the writer's age. His rigid training was no doubt 
partly responsible for this. 

For there was a good deal of the stuff of a Roman matron 
in that Virginia widow who was bringing up her young family on 
the banks of the Rappahannock. The domestic manners were 
formal and ceremonious, and would appear to our free-and-easy 
life burdensome and absurd; but beneath all the formality, 
beautiful and sterling virtues flourished vigorously. 

Augustine Washington, the father of George, had given 



George WasUngton. 



the highest proof of his confidence in his wife's character and 
abilities, by appointing her guardian of their children. 

George Washington was, in his early teens, a large-limbed, 
powerful young fellow, with a grave, thoughtful face, with blue 
eyes and brown hair. He was singularly cpiet, shy, and keenly 
observant. He had no brilliant conversational gifts, though he 
had a quiet sense of humor. The thing about him most likely 
to strike an observer was his immense enjoyment of all out-door 
sports and games. He was a splendid athlete. In all exercises 
which required long-breathing power, steady nerves, and well- 
trained muscles, George Washington won the prize among his 
young companions. Here he showed to much better advantage 
than he did in the gay drawing-room at Belvoir, where his native 
shyness often made the tall, grave, handsome youth silent and 
awkward. 

Those who knew him best were quite aware that under the 
silence and shyness were a strong will and a swift temper ; and 
whatever confidence they may have had in his word, they were 
not likely to regard him as a youthful saint. 

The air about him at that time must have been heated with 
war-tales. Indeed, his childhood had been filled with stories 
of Indian ravages on the border, told probably in the long 
winter evenings when the household sat about the fire, and the 
flames roared in the big chimney. 

Among the daisies of the old Westmoreland meadow he had, 
a mere child, formed his companies and drilled --his small 
playfellows. Anybody who had watched their maneuvers 
must have felt there was the making of a soldier in that young 
boy. 

But Mrs. Washington cherished other than military ambi- 
tions for her son. The dearest wish of her heart was that he 
should follow in the steps of his father, become the head of 
the household, and a Virginia planter. 



Our Presidents. 



This desire once briefly and reluctantly yielded to her son's 
wishes, backed, no doubt, by Laurence's influence. The latter 
inherited the martial spirit of his race. English naval officers, 
with whom he had served in the West Indies, were frequent 
guests at Mount Vernon. Here the talk could not fail to run 
much upon military affairs. George, thrown at his impressible 
age into this society, must have been greatly stirred by it. 
His soul took fire. At fourteen — it must always be borne in 
mind that he looked and seemed older than his birthdays — a 
passion to enter the navy took possession of him. This was a 
cruel frustration of all the mother's hopes. Everybody knows 
the story of the consent won from her unwilling lips, and how, 
at the last moment, when the midshipman's warrant had been 
procured, and the trunk was on board the ship-of-war, her heart 
failed her. She withdrew her consent. It must have been a 
cruel blow to a boy of fourteen, his soul on fire with dreams of 
future honor and glory to be won in his new career. But he 
does not appear to have rebelled ; he was made of the same 
stuff as his mother ; he returned to school ; he studied survey- 
ing ; he took great delight in it, and soon became an admirable 
scholar in this department. 

When George Washington was sixteen a new figure comes 
into the foreground of his life, the figure of one destined to 
have a commanding influence on all the years of that opening 
manhood. This was Lord Thomas Fairfax. He was a man of 
singular character and history. He came to America to visit 
his cousins at Belvoir, and to look over the immense landed 
estates which he had inherited from his mother, and which 
were under the care of his cousin, William Fairfax, Laurence 
Washington's father-in-law. 

The advent of the shrewd, eccentric old nobleman at Bel- 
voir, with his knowledge of courts, of the army, of the world, 
must have created a profound sensation. It could not have 



George Washington. 



been long before he and George Washington met. Lord Fair- 
fax soon discovered that the tall, shy youth of sixteen had some 
traits in common with his own. Each had the same delight in 
the wide, free life of the fields and woods ; each had a passion, 
too, for hunting the game to cover. 

These common sympathies brought the polished English 
nobleman and the shy Westmoreland youth much together. 
Out of this friendship grew an event of vast consequence to 
young Washington's future. 

Immense tracts of Lord Fairfax's estate lay in the Shenan- 
doah Valley, beyond the great walls of the Blue Ridge. No- 
body knew their extent ; very few cared about it. Pioneers 
from the northern colonies, especially from Pennsylvania, 
attracted by the beauty and fertility of the land, established 
themselves wherever they chose, in utter disregard of the own- 
er's title. 

Lord Fairfax at length resolved to have his estates surveyed. 
He actually proposed that the boy of sixteen, with whom he 
had hunted in the Virginia woods, should undertake this im- 
mense task. 

In March, 1748, the little party set out on its perilous jour- 
ney into the primeval wildernesses. Washington was accom- 
panied by young Fairfax, the brother of Laurence's wife and 
six years George's senior. It is said that the young explorers 
were much attached to each other. 

If the trip was full of perils and hardships, it had also im- 
mense fascinations for youth and health and courage. Washing- 
ton now had his first taste of that frontier life of which he was 
to have so varied an experience. He learned what keen 
pleasure it was *' to sleep on the hard ground, lying well 
wrapped before a blazing fire, with no roof but the skies. " 

The small party which accompanied Washington did good 
work at the surveying, in which he appears to have taken the 



8 Our Presidents. 



lead. His diligent study served him well now Some days, 
we read, he earned twenty dollars — immense wages at that 
time for a youth of sixteen. 

But there was much rough experience to. encounter. The 
wild March storms often burst furiously upon the little 
party. They were forced to swim their horses over rivers 
swollen by freshets. At other times they hunted the game with 
which the woods abounded, and, in one place, where the com- 
pany had halted, the Indians came in suddenly from the war- 
path. But they must have been friendly, for they treated the 
pale-faces to a war-dance. A youth of sixteen would not be 
likely to forget the weird, savage horror of that scene in the 
primeval wilderness. 

When he returned to Lord Fairfax, George Washington's 
school-days were over. He had performed his task so well 
that he soon afterward received a commission from the gov- 
ernor as public surveyor. 

The three following years were spent in congenial work. 
This life of field and wilderness educated George Washington 
for his future career as no books, no teachers could have done. 
It laid the foundations of his splendid health ; it steadied his 
nerves, until no roar of wild beast, no war-whoop of savages, 
could shake their trained calmness ; it fitted him for all the 
hardships and exigencies of the soldier's life ; it inured him 
alike to summer's heat and winter's cold, while it made him 
keen to detect any danger, and swift and brave to meet it. 

But those three years were not all spent in the wilderness. 
They were brightened by frequent visits to his mother, to 
Mount Vernon, to Belvoir. The young surveyor also visited 
Lord Fairfax in the cabin he had built in the Shenandoah Val- 
ley, and pored over the volumes which the nobleman had 
brought from England. 

While Washington was busy with his government surveys. 



George Washington. 



the events which were to form so thrilling a chapter in Ameri- 
can history were coming to the front. 

Two nations had long been bent on obtaining supremacy in 
America. The English had planted their colonies along the 
Atlantic coast and "guarded the front door of the American 
continent." The French had held steadily to their plans of 
building forts in the interior. They meant the chain should 
be secure — not a link missing from Canada to Louisiana. 

Of course each nation had followed the bent of its own 
genius in laying the foundations for its supremacy in America. 
The English planted their farms and built their towns ; the 
French raised forts and established trading-posts. Every year 
the English pushed deeper into the lonely forests and stretched 
their clearings farther to the west. One almost seems to catch 
from that far-away time the ringing of the axe in the \vilderness, 
the hum of busy industry, and the old songs with which the 
brave pioneers set to their work, resolved, with Anglo-Saxon 
grit, that the fair land beyond the Alleghanies should be theirs 
and their children's forever. 

But another race, with all its old Gallic courage and shrewd- 
ness, was there too. It had pre-empted the land, and it had 
come to stay. It perceived with alarm and wrath that each 
year the English clearings drew nearer to the French posts, 
over which the Bourbon lilies waved in the great interior, west 
of the Appalachian Range. 

Then there were the Indians — a foe that English and 
French must alike count with. The savages regarded both the 
white races with jealousy and rage that often flamed up in terri- 
ble vengeance. 

The pale-faces were to the tribes the foreign and hated 
foe who had seized their ancient hunting grounds. But the 
Indians sided sometimes with the French, sometimes with the 
English, as interest or caprice dictated ; while frequent and 



lO Our Presidents. 



bloody wars between the tribes weakened their numbers and 
wasted their strength. 

Meanwhile, the great aim of each race was to secure pos- 
session of the Ohio Valley. Each, as we have seen, set about 
achieving its purpose by characteristic methods. The French 
steadily added to the number of their forts in the interior ; the 
English organized the Ohio Company. Laurence Washington 
was the head of this company. Events were marching rapidly. 
It was evident that the immense area of the Ohio Valley was 
to be the scene of a fierce struggle for dominion. 

All this sounds strange and remote as the AVars of the Roses. 
Yet these things happened, we have to tell ourselves, only in 
the last century, and when that was just crossing its meridian. 

The colonies now took the alarm. There was talk of war on 
every side. Military drills suddenly became the fashion in the 
quiet old Virginia towns. It was significant that at this time 
George Washington began to study military treatises and take 
lessons in sword exercise. 

But all this was brought to a sudden close by the alarming 
condition of Laurence Washington's health, impaired by his 
life in the West Indies. He was forced at this juncture to 
leave his young wife and daughter and go to Barbadoes for the 
winter. His brother accompanied him. 

This was the only time in which George Washington ever 
set foot on any soil but his native one. During this absence 
he had two experiences, Avidely unlike. He took the small-pox, 
and always retained slight marks of it ; he visited the theater 
for the first time. 

But the invalid's health did not permanently rally ; he 
barely reached Mount Vernon to die there in July, 1752. 

George Washington's heart and hands must have been full 
at this time. The youth of twenty was appointed one of the 
executors of Laurence's estate, and in case the young daughter 



Georjie WashiujitoH. 1 1 



died Mount Vernon was to revert to the brother, between 
whom and her father had existed so close an affection. Wash- 
ington now went to live at Mount Vernon. It was to be home 
to him for the rest of his life. 

The story of the years that followed is crowded with pict- 
uresque events, and is full of breathless interest. It fires one's 
heart to read of that time. But to dwell on it would be to 
expand this sketch to a volume. To this period belongs that 
expedition to the French out-posts which runs like a romance. 
Washington accomplished the journey amid every conceivable 
peril over ice-bound rivers, through frozen wildernesses. At 
last the young American confronted the wily, polished French 
officers in their own quarters, and amid their Indian allies. 
He found himself forced to match his coolness, his inborn can- 
dor, his untried sagacity, with veterans trained in camps, and 
with treacherous savages. It was a wonder that he ever lived 
to relate his return from the lonely out-post. " The terrible 
hardships broke down even the strong pack-horses. Wash- 
ington and Christopher Gist, the seasoned frontiersman who 
accompanied him, were forced to alight, leave the rest of the 
party to come on by slower stages, while the pair struck into 
the snow-bound wilderness on foot. At one point in this jour- 
ney the Indian guide, believing the white men in his power, 
attempted to shoot them." Washington escaped all these dan- 
gers to barely save himself from drowning when he slipped 
from the raft of logs into the icy current of the Alleghany. It 
seemed at that critical moment that the life which was yet to 
prove so infinitely precious to his country was hardly worth a 
pin's fee. 

But he gained the settlements at last, much exhausted 
though not permanently injured by that terrible journey. A 
little later he reached the capital and laid the results of his 
mission before the governor of the colony. He had executed his 



12 Our Presidents. 



delicate and trying task Avith astonishing tact and sagacity. From 
that moment he was, we read, " the rising hope of Virginia." 

A lowering May morning of 1754 forms an important date 
in American history and in the life of George Washington. 
At that time the first gun was fired in the long contest between 
the English and French for possession of the Ohio Valley. 
Washington was in that battle. Young Jumonville, the French 
commander, was killed. The Americans won the victory, and 
sent twenty-one prisoners to the colony. 

"I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is 
something charming in the sound," Washington is reported to 
have written to his brother. The words do not sound like him, 
but he was only twenty-two, and in the flush of his first victory. 

He must have smiled grimly to himself when, on the follow- 
ing 4th of July, he led his defeated and draggled little army 
from Great Meadows. During these months he had seen 
another side of war than the swift whistling of bullets. His 
fiery temper had been tried by all sorts of vexations and dis- 
appointments. These were largely the result of the incompe- 
tency, jealousy, and obstinacy of the colonial government. He 
was at last reduced to extremities ; his supplies had failed ; his 
troops were starving. 

The draggled little army marched bravely away — drums 
beating and colors flying — from an enemy whose numbers 
made it impossible to prolong the contest. George Washing- 
ton's heart must have been very heavy on that 4th of July. 
How little he could dream that date would yet be illuminated 
with undying glory for himself and his country ! 

Twenty-two years from that time he was to draw his sword 
under the old Cambridge elm in another and longer contest. 

The history of the long struggle for possession of the Ohio 
Valley, and the part Washington played in it, cannot be dwelt 
upon here. 



George IVasbwgton. 13 

There came an hour which must have seemed, in the 
completeness of his triumph, to reward him for all his wrongs 
and toils and sufferings. That hour fell on November 25, 
1758, when the young Virginia colonel marched with the 
advanced guard into Fort Duquesne, and planted the English 
colors where the French had waved so long. The enemy, 
reduced to extremities, had blown up the magazines, set fire to 
the fort, and departed the night before. 

The long struggle between the two peoples for the land 
whose eastern wall was the Alleghanies, had ended in victory 
for the race which had begun its career in America by tilling 
farms and planting towns on the Atlantic seaboard. 

A few months later George Washington was settled at 
Mount Vernon. He had inherited this noble domain at the 
death of Laurence's daughter. It was to be the dearest spot 
on earth to him for the rest of his life. 

Everybody knows how unexpectedly he met the beautiful 
Martha Custis — how her charms fascinated him on the first 
interview, and what an impression the young officer's handsome 
presence and stately bearing made on her — how his wooing 
prospered, and how their wedding took place in the January 
which followed the close of the campaign. 

The next sixteen years of George Washington's life were 
spent at Mount Vernon. Their story reads like some charming 
idyl, so filled does it seem, at this distance of time, with all 
congenial activities, with home quiet and affection, with perfect 
health, with generous hospitalities, and with pure and ennobling 
social enjoyments. The picture of this period is set in the frame- 
work of the noble estate which had fallen to the proprietor. It 
seemed a fit environment for him, with those beautiful groves, 
those vast woodlands, those far-stretching fields, ripening 
through the long Virginia summers into splendid harvests. 

Of course there must have been a reverse side to the shield. 



14 Our Presidents. 



Those sixteen years could not have been the scene of flawless 
happiness which they appear as they smile on us across more 
than a century. Yet George Washington was probably at this 
time one of the happiest, as he was one of the busiest of men. 
The superintendence of that immense estate involved burdens 
which would have weighed down a less stalwart nature, but 
they sat lightly on that vigorous, energetic manhood. 

Washington's promptness, order, and business thoroughness 
were now brought into full play, and enabled him to get 
through with a vast amount of work which would have sorely 
perplexed a less methodical temperament. Such a man would 
be certain to rise early and make the most of the morning 
hours. He rode over the grounds while the grass Avas still 
drowned in dews, giving the most careful attention to every 
department of his farm, as he loved to call the great domain. 
Nothing escaped his keen eyes ; no detail was too small for his 
attention. He was a kind and just, but no doubt he often 
seemed an exacting master. 

The old passion for the chase always revived with the hunt- 
ing season. Then the busy, dignified master of Mount Vernon 
put aside all business to go out with the hounds. He and his 
neighbors had merry mornings in the woods. On these hunts 
he must have felt himself very much the boy he had beer 
when he and Lord Fairfax chased the game to cover. 

The bright sixteen years went their smooth, swift course, 
and then the clouds gathered slowly but surely. The life so 
full, happy, prosperous, was to be followed by another, bur- 
dened with such cares and trials as, in many respects, never fell 
to the lot of mortal. 

It is impossible to enter here into a history of the causes 
which at last wrought their legitimate result in the American 
Revolution. We know how one oppressive measure after 
another, whose purpose could only be to suppress the liberties 



George Washington. i 5 



and ruin the manufactures of America, at last goaded the col- 
onies to rebellion. 

In the quiet home by the Potomac a man whose name was 
not familiar to English ears watched with saddened but reso- 
lute heart the gathering of the storm. 

Washington's love of country was the deepest feeling of that 
strong, reserved nature. When the test came, every other 
affection, every other interest had to yield to this supreme one. 

Yet the prospect of rebellion when he first forced himself to 
look it in the face must have been terrible to him. He 
had nothing to gain, he had much to lose, even in the case 
of a successful issue, to a strife begun under such immense 
disadvantages for the colonies. 

All the military ambitions of his youth had long been laid 
to rest. His temperament, education, surroundings, made him 
conservative. His early associations, the long military service 
of his youth, had strengthened his attachment to the mother 
country, and his pride in the ties that bound the colonies to 
their old home. 

Washington's hope that England would be wise and relent 
in time yielded very slowly. He saw one high-handed measure 
follow another, whose purpose could only be to crush the liber- 
ties and ruin tlie prosperity of his country. The air around 
him shook with the dangerous wrath of freemen. 

During all this trying time Washington maintained his 
calmness of speech and bearing. Yet under these the fire 
burned bright and steady. He was not silent when the lime 
came to speak, nor idle when it came to work. In every 
assembly where Virginia freemen met to protest against the 
tyranny of England, or to assert the rights and liberties of 
British colonies, one man was, if possible, in their midst ; one 
man's strong, brief sentences had the ring of unfaltering patriot- 
ism, of undying courage. 



1 6 Our Presidents. 



Perhaps George Washington was never himself conscious of 
the precise hour when he made up his mind where the war — if 
it came to one — between England and America would find 
him. Yet, what tremendous issues for his country, for the 
world, were to hang on the decision of that unknown hour ! 

Another hour, which in reality was George Washington's 
summons to the field, and which every schoolboy knows, struck 
in the pleasant April morning, when " the shot was fired that 
was heard around the world." 

On the twentieth of the following June the continental 
congress at Philadelphia appointed George Washington com- 
mander-in-chief of the American army. The next day he set 
out for the camp. 

On July 3, 1775, he took command of the forces assembled 
at Cambridge. The General was now in the prime of manhood, 
forty-three years of age. His tall, stately figure, his noble face, 
his dignified presence — all the ideal of a soldier— made a pro- 
found impression on the people who had crowded into Cam- 
bridge to see the new commander. 

Under the old elm, among whose green leaves the winds still 
play softly as they did on that historic summer morning, Wash- 
ington wheeled his horse and drew the sword, which he then 
ardently hoped to lay down in the next autumn, but which he 
was destined to bear for the next eight years. 

This is not the place to relate the long drama of the Amer- 
ican Revolution. When its unspeakable toils and sacrifices, its 
defeats and sufferings, were crowned at last with the splendid 
victory, and the final surrender before the allied armies at 
Yorktown, George Washington stood before the world, the 
Deliverer of his country, the foremost man in American history. 

The close of the war of the Revolution is followed by one 
scene after another of thrilling interest, in which Washington 
is the central figure. Not the least of these scenes is that 



George Washington. 17 

solemn, pathetic one, where he met his officers for the last time, 
and parted with them in New York. 

Nineteen days after that event Washington, with a simple, 
characteristic speech, resigned his commission before a large 
audience assembled at Annapolis, and craved leave of Congress 
to retire from the service of his country. 

On the following night — it was Christmas eve — he was at 
Mount Vernon. With what unspeakable feelings he must once 
more have kept the ancient holiday under his own roof-tree ! 

He returned to the old life and habits with the old zest. 
His highest ambition, to repeat his own grandly simple words, 
was "to be a farmer and live an honest man." 

But his country could not leave him to the privacy of his 
home, to dear domestic ties, to the old enjoyments and activities 
of his domestic life. 

The Confederacy, from which so much had been hoped for 
America and for humanity, proved, in its practical workings, a 
failure. 

After three years at Mount Vernon, years whose domestic 
happiness had been shadowed by anxieties for his country, the 
Convention assembled at Philadelphia framed the Constitution, 
and George Washington was, in the following spring, unani- 
mously elected first President of the United States. 

The great soldier might well be appalled by the new duties 
and responsibilities which confronted him on every side. These 
were of a nature which demanded the highest qualities of 
statesmanship. There were no precedents, no traditions to 
guide him. The young nation had been impoverished by the 
long war of the Revolution. Its domestic affairs were in 
utmost confusion. Its foreign relations were ill-defined, unsatis- 
factory, and might, at any moment, become so dangerous as to 
threaten its existence. 

A.\\ eyes were fasti.Mied on the brave figure which stood at 



• 

1 8 Our Presidenis. 



the helm of the ship of state, as she moved out on unknown, 
perilous seas. 

The fortunes of the nation seemed to hang on the skill, 
energy, and wisdom of one man. 

The history of his administration is a record of the sound 
judgment, courage, and devotion with which he guided the ship 
of state for the next eight years over the stormy waters. 
Washington had proved himself a great soldier ; he showed now 
the instinct of the wise, conscientious, far-sighted statesman. 

It is only fair to say something here of the part Mrs. Wash- 
ington played at this time. The wife of the President of the 
United States must always be an object of interest to her 
countrywomen. She is, for the time, the representative of 
American womanhood to her nation — to the world. That her 
character and bearing should lend grace and dignity to her 
high position, must be desired by every woman who cares for 
the honor of her country. Martha Washington came, like her 
husband, to bear a new name, to fill a new place. The social 
duties which it involved proved at once a burdensome tax on 
the President's precious time. His wife exerted herself to 
relieve him. She was accustomed to the accomplished circles 
of the old commonwealth. As lady of the nation she pre- 
sided with an ease and dignity which had become her second 
nature. 

But it was not as the gracious, affable wife of our first 
President that Martha Washington shows her finest quality. 
Many women of her day could, no doubt, have played her role 
there with equal satisfaction. But not all women would have 
left the elegant seclusion of Mount Vernon to share the hard- 
ships and privations of the army's winter-quarters. Martha 
Washington was not daunted even by the miseries and sufferings 
of Valley Forge. 

She seems to have been remarkably well adapted to a man 



George IVasbington. 19 



of her liusband's character and habits. She was not a woman, 
however, of marked mental gifts. She did not possess the 
strong intellectual tastes, the delight in books, the sensitive 
imagination, of which the woman, who a little later took her 
place, had given such proofs in her private correspondence. 

But Martha Washington showed, through all adverse fates, 
the heart and temper of a true woman, and proved herself 
worthy of the immortal name she bears. 

On March 4, 1797, George Washington, to his unspeakable 
relief and happiness, closed his administration. It is touching 
to see how tired he had grown, how he looked forward to his 
release from the weight of public affairs, as the prisoner looks 
forward to the first hour of his freedom. 

He returned as soon as possible to Mount Vernon. His 
prolonged absence only served to enhance his love for this 
place. It had been the gift of the beloved dead. Its name 
was associated with those gallant services in the West Indies 
which had cost the young owner his life. It had been the 
home of Washington's youth, of his manhood, the scene of all 
the happiest events and memories of his life. Whenever he 
alluded to the estate, to its delightful air, its noble river, its 
beautiful groves, its vast woodlands, the haunts of deer and 
foxes and all wild game, its fields ripening into their splendid 
harvests, the usual reserve of his speech waxes into enthusiasm. 
That fair, ample domain was an earthly paradise in the eyes of 
George Washington. 

He resumed the old life with the old energy and activity. 
Again a tall, stately figure rode about the grounds in the early 
mornings. Washington superintended his workmen, planned 
his improvements, attended to all the details of his affairs, pre- 
cisely as in his youth. Yet his hair was getting white ; he was 
growing, as he said of himself long before to his soldiers, " an 
old man." 



20 Our Presidents. 



His time was much consumed by the guests who crowded 
to that quiet home. His hospitalities taxed the resources which 
had suffered heavily during his long public service. He soon 
discovered that every distinguished foreigner who set foot on 
the western shores was eager to meet America's most illustrious 
citizen. 

But he carried his cares and his years bravely, and his 
splendid health and tireless activity were the source of constant 
satisfaction to his friends. 

He had no children of his own, but his family relations 
and those of his wife brought a good deal of gay young life to 
Mount Vernon at this time. 

Washington was fond of reading, but his opportunities for 
study had always been of the most meager kind. Under any 
circumstances he would not, probably, have made a scholar in 
the technical sense of the v/ord. The bent of his genius was 
eminently practical. He had a passion for horses, for trees, for 
the wide, green, pleasant earth, for the fields and the forests. 

The peace of Mount Vernon was rudely broken once more. 
The war clouds again loomed threatening above the horizon. 
They showed themselves this time in a quarter where they 
would have been last looked for. The French Directory, angry 
and resentful at what it regarded its grievances, and accustomed 
to deal with nations in the most high-handed fashion, passed 
measures which struck a deadly blow at American commerce. 

This was received with a storm of indignation which swept 
through the country. War with our ancient ally seemed for 
awhile inevitable. There was only one man whom the nation 
would place at the head of that army. The commission which 
appointed Washington commander-in-chief was promptly car- 
ried to Mount Vernon. 

It was a most unwelcome honor. But the gray-haired sol- 
dier could not bring himself to refuse the last of his life to 



George Washington. 21 



the country to whom he had given the strength of his youth, 
the prime of his manhood. He soon found himself compelled 
to leave Mount Vernon again. He took up the old wearisome 
burden of military cares. He organized the new army, ap- 
pointed its officers, and attended to infinite details which must 
have told heavily on his waning vigor. 

The arrogant Directory was not prepared for the storm 
which it had aroused in America. When France •vyas satis- 
fied that her ancient ally really meant, if things came to the 
worst, to go to war with her, she retreated from her first posi- 
tion. 

America gladly responded to the new advances, and the 
difficulties between the two nations were happily adjusted. 

Washington returned once more to Mount Vernon. He 
was never to leave it again. 

Days followed full of restful quiet and content. In the 
early mornings a stately figure, which had long moved at the 
head of armies, might have been seen riding about Mount Ver- 
non, the thin gray hair shining about the calm, fine face. 

George Washington's life and that of the century in which 
he had done his work, were drawing to a close. He was near- 
ing his sixty-eighth birthday. 

The Washington breed was not a long-lived one, but it 
seemed as though the greatest of the stock might enjoy a hale 
old age. As that last autumn of the century passed into winter, 
Washington appeared to those about him in perfect health and 
vigor. He was leading a busy but tranquil life ; he was still 
alert with interest on all that concerned his country ; he was, 
with all his old energy, projecting improvements and supervis- 
ing affairs at Mount Vernon. 

One morning he took a ride around his grounds in the rough 
December weather. When he returned to the house, snow- 
flakes glistened in his white hair. He had spent too much of 



22 Our Presidents. 



his youth in wilderness and camp to have any fear about the 
weather, and went to dinner in his damp garments. 

But the next morning he complained of a sore throat, while 
the snow, continuing to fall, prevented his taking his usual 
ride. In the afternoon, however, when the weather cleared, he 
went out, and marked some trees which he wished cut down. 
So the earliest account of his activity begins with a tree and 
ends with one ! When he returned to the house that afternoon 
he had taken his last walk around Mount Vernon. 

But that night the trouble in his throat increased, and by the 
next morning it was evident to the household that he was seri- 
ously ill. Doctors were summoned, who endeavored to relieve 
the sufferer after the bungling methods of their time. But all 
their efforts were in vain. 

From the beginning the illness was a "swift descent to 
death. " Washington seems soon to have given up all hope of 
his recovery, though his iron constitution did not yield Avithout 
agonizing struggles. 

The old courage and calmness ring through George Wash- 
ington's last utterances, though these were few, for his disease 
— acute laryngitis — made speech extremely painful to him. 

The death he had faced so often on the battle-field had 
stolen upon him unawares in the peace and security of home ; 
but it found him ready. To use his own words, " he was not 
afraid to go." 

The illness lasted forty-eight hours. At last the agonized 
breathing grew easier. "Washington withdrev/ his hand from his 
secretary's, and felt his own pulse." This act showed the clear- 
ness of his mind, as well as the habit of the soldier. Then a 
change crept over his features. 

The next morning, when the late winter sun came over the 
horizon, George Washington was lying dead in the simple 
chamber at Mount Vernon. 



George Washington. 23 



The life that had begun a few miles away, in the low-roofed 
home on Bridge's Creek, one winter's morning when the century 
was still in its youth, ended when that century had only a fort- 
night's more lease of life. 

The date of George Washington's death reads : 
December 17, 1799. 



JOHN ADAMS. 

Somewhere among the closing days of the summer of 1774, 
in the old colonial town of Philadelphia, a man still young, for 
he had not yet reached his thirty-ninth birthday, was eagerly 
reading a letter which contained these words : 

" I have taken a very great fondness for reading Rollin's Ancient 
History since you left me. I am determined to go through with it, if pos- 
sible, in these my days of solitude. I find great pleasure and entertain- 
ment from it, and I have persuaded Johnny to read me a page or two every 
day, and hope he will, from his desire to oblige me, entertain a fondness 
for it." 

This simple, graphic picture of home life has a certain 
tender interest to those who read the lines more than a himdred 
years after they were written. 

One, with a little imagination, sees the quiet, old-fashioned 
country home amid the days of that waning summer — the last 
peaceful one which King George's American colonies were 
ever to know — and the young mother listening as her boy of 
seven reads in his thin, childish voice from the ponderous old 
history which held such a post of honor in the scant libraries of 
a century ago. One can almost hear too, through the childish 
treble of the reader, the sounds of the summer outside — the 
stirring of leaves, the humming of bees, the song of birds. The 
whole scene will come up vividly when one happens suddenly 
nowadays on the bulky tomes of the ancient history. 

At that time Boston, ten miles distant, lay prostrate under 
the iron heel of the blockade. The Port Bill had been car- 
ried out with merciless rigor. The British army was on the 



John Adams. 25 

common ; the British fleet was in the harbor. The fight at 
Concord took place just eight months after the date of the 
letter with its characteristic little scene. For it was immensely 
characteristic of both the writer and her son. In those hard 
days, in all the harder ones of the years that followed, the 
wives and mothers of the Revolution did their part with noble 
constancy and self-sacrifice ; yet it may be doubted whether, in 
all the American colonies, there was another wife who fortified 
her heart and solaced her loneliness, by turning resolutely to 
the pages of the prolix old history ; whether there was another 
boy of seven on all the American seaboard in that famous year 
of 1774, who found more pleasure in a page of " Rollin " than 
he did in his games and his playground. 

John Adams, who was reading his wife's letter in the clos- 
ing days of the summer, and to whose heart that little scene 
must have gone, amid all the perplexities and responsibilities 
which surrounded him at the time, was one of the five Massa- 
chusetts delegates to the first continental congress which met 
in Philadelphia. "He was born October 19, 1735 (O. S.), in 
Braintree on the S. shore of Boston harbor." His father was 
one of the small farmers of those days who managed to wrest a 
living out of the rugged New England soil, and who was fore- 
handed enough to send his eldest son to Harvard, where he 
graduated in 1755. 

The young man of twenty, who must, long before this 
period, have given many proofs to his friends and companions 
of a very marked type of character, immediately took charge of 
a grammar-scliool at Worcester. His ardent, intense nature 
found school-teaching a slow business at best. In some of his 
moods he was heartily sick of it ; he felt the stir of larger 
ambitions ; he thirsted for a wider sphere of action. 

The long war with France for the possession of the country 
beyond the Alleghany Range was, at this period, a matter of 



• 
26 Our Presidents. 



supreme interest with the colonies, and it aroused all the 
patriotic instincts of the grammar-school teacher. He had 
now, too, serious debates with himself as to his choice of a 
profession. At one time he inclined toward the ministry. But 
the ecclesiastical councils and the rigid Calvinism of the day 
repelled him, and he finally decided in favor of the law. But 
he was not satisfied ; he had longings for a soldier's life. This 
was quite natural to one of his age and temperament. He was 
eager to command " a company of foot, a troop of horse." 
But the outlook on this side was hopeless to " one who lacked 
interest and patronage." It was probably John Adams' good 
fortune that he was not, at this time, drawn into a military 
career. The laurels fate held in store for him were to be won 
on other and more congenial battle-fields. He was restless, 
moody, dejected at times ; but at last he made up his mind to 
study for the law, and set about it with characteristic pluck 
and energy. 

November 6, 1758, was a memorable date in young Adams' 
life, for at that time he "was recommended to the court for 
the oath, and shook hands with the bar." 

He at once began the practice of law in Suffolk County. 
At the time when he had decided on studying for his profes- 
sion, he had written some noble words which should have a 
place, even in this slight sketch of his life. 

" But I set out with firm resolutions, I think, never to com- 
mit any meanness or injustice in the practice of the law." 

This resolve was, no doubt, occasioned by the opposition 
young Adams had encountered in the choice of his profession. 
In the New England of that day there existed an inveterate 
prejudice against the law. 

John Adams settled himself to his life-work, as he then 
regarded it. He soon found clients, and in the years that 
followed they steadily increased. He brought the intellectual 



John Adams. 27 

and moral qualities to his profession, which always, in the long 
run, insure success. But the fees were small, and his material 
fortunes did not make rapid progress. 

He was just twenty-nine years old ; he had been for nearly six 
years practicing law in Suffolk County, when he did that which 
was to prove the wisest, most fortunate act of his life. On 
October 25, 1764, lie wedded Abigail Smith, the young daugh- 
ter of a Weymoutli clergyman. She was a mere girl at that 
time, as she had not yet reached her twentieth birthday. She 
had been brought up in a home atmosphere of tenderness and 
refinement, and amid earnest religious influences. The woman 
she was, the wife she proved, will be apparent enough in these 
pages, as it is impossible to write the briefest biography of 
John Adams without having much to say of his wife. 

The year that followed the marriage saw the passage of the 
Stamp Act. We know what kind of reception it met with in 
America. The young lawyer was, from the beginning, one of 
its most outspoken and insistent opponents. He was a New 
Englander, and he cast in his lot promptly and absolutely with 
the patriots. No fears could shake, no temptations swerve 
him. From this time to the end of his life he was devoted 
heart and soul to the service of his country. Men might talk of 
his faults and foibles, but nobody ever detected a flaw in his 
patriotism. 

The storm which had been roused in the colonies quieted 
with the repeal of the Stamp Act. But that fatal measure had 
a lasting influence on the old traditional sentiment of loyalty to 
Great Britain. The current of popular feeling never quite set 
again in the old channels. A watchful, suspicious temper had 
been aroused, which the home government and those who rep- 
resented it in America took little pains to allay. 

During the half dozen years which preceded the Revolution 
John Adams probably led as happy a life as any man in New 



28 Oitr Presidents. 



England. His success in his profession proved his wisdom in 
choosing it. He was a man of ardent family feelings, and his 
domestic relations were of a peculiarly delightful character. 
As the years went on, children — three boys and a girl — came to 
gladden his home. He removed from Braintree to Boston, and 
back again as his health or circumstances made the change 
desirable. But there was one shadow on all these bright pros- 
pects. John Adams was too sincere a patriot to feel at ease 
about his country. He seems through all these busy, prosper- 
ous years to have had some prescience of the dark days ahead. 
It must have been a bitter sight to him when he saw the two 
regiments of redcoats which England sent to awe the turbu- 
lent little province march proudly through Boston town, " the 
drums beating, the fifes playing, with charged muskets and fixed 
bayonets." 

About this time efforts were made to detach him from the 
patriotic side. The lucrative post which the government 
offered him " in the Court of Admiralty " was a flattering testi- 
mony to his character and influence. But John Adams was 
not deceived. This offer from the government, with all that 
it promised, was in the nature of a bribe, and was promptly 
declined. 

In the midst of his professional cares he found time to con- 
tribute various political articles to the papers. Some of these 
were of such marked force and ability that they were afterward 
republished in London. 

During this period Mr. Adams was much in the thick of 
public affairs. This involved great personal sacrifices. He 
did not choose his side without fully counting the cost. If he 
grew moody and despondent at times, if his heart and his hope 
failed him occasionally, his central purpose never did. 

During these years he was chosen representative at the 
General Court, and his defense of Captain Preston and the 



John Adams. 29 

soldiers after the Boston massacre was one of the bravest deeds 
of his life. 

The destruction of the tea-chests, the Boston Port Bill, 
brought the crisis. On June 17, 1774, the Provincial Assembly- 
voted behind its closed doors to send five Massachusetts dele- 
gates to the continental Congress to be held in Philadelphia. 
Probably nobody was surprised that one of the delegates was 
John Adams. 

A little while before setting out he was at Falmouth on 
professional business, and he wrote Mrs. Adams in his trench- 
ant style : 

"Vapors avauiit ! I will do my duty and leave the event. If I have 
the approbation of my own mind, whether applauded or censured, blessed or 
cursed by the world, I shall not be unhappy. " 

A little later he made the long journey on which such great 
issues were to depend. It was in the midst of the summer 
heats that John Adams, " who had never been out of New Eng- 
land before," turned his back on his quiet Braintree home, on 
his wife and his young children, and rode away to do his part 
in that famous old colonial Congress. He was to meet there 
George Washington and Patrick Henry. He wrote of the 
journey to his wife : 

" I never enjoyed better health in any of my journeys, but this has been 
the most irksome, the most gloomy and melancholy I ever made. I cannot, 
with all my philosophy and Christian resignation, keep up my spirits. The 
dismal prospect before me, my family and my country, is too much for my 
fortitude." 

But tliese words broke only from one of those impatient, 
despondent moods to which the writer, like most ardent, impetu- 
ous natures, was liable. It Avas in a wholly different temper 
that he wrote, confident and joyous to his wife, not long after 
his arrival on the scene of action : 

'■ The spirit of firmness, the prudence of our I'rovince arc vastly ap- 



30 Our Presidents. 



plauded, and we are universally acknowledged the saviors and defenders of 
American liberty." 

And the letter closes with one of those rapid, tender tran- 
sitions which are so characteristic of the writer : 

" My babes are never out of my mind, nor absent from my heart." 

And the high-hearted wife was writing on the same date in 
the quiet Braintree home : 

'* Five weeks have passed, and not one line have I received. I would 
rather give a dollar for a letter by the post, though the consequence should 
be that I ate but one meal a day these three weeks to come." 

These lines give one a new notion of the distance between 
Boston and Philadelphia a hundred years ago. 

If the history of that first Continental Congress had been 
amply reported, there would be no space to linger upon it here. 
When it broke up late in the autumn, it appeared to Mr. Adams, 
as no doubt it did to most of his constituents, that very little 
had been done. "Commercial non-intercourse" seemed a piti- 
ful outcome for all those long secret deliberations of a body 
which represented the wisest heads, the most patriotic hearts, 
in America. Had the colonies sent at this momentous period 
their wisest statesmen to Congress? Had the whole country 
waited eager and breathless for months for so meager a result ? 

All over the land men must have been asking this question, 
resentful and disappointed in the lessening days of the autumn 
of 1774. 

But they made a mistake. The Congress had done its work. 
It was everything to the colonies at this juncture that their best 
material had been brought together; that their real statesmen 
and leaders had met, and parted, and understood each other. 

On John Adams's return to his home he found plenty to do. 
Braintree at once sent him a delegate to the Provincial Assem- 
bly. His immense activity and patriotic fervor found a fresh 



John Adams. 31 

field for work in the famous newspaper controversy, in which 
he maintained the people's side with masterly reasoning. So 
the winter passed into spring, and then the strife took another 
form than tliat of newspaper articles. Mr. Adams could lay 
down his pen. The day of Lexington and Concord had 
come ! 

He was appointed a delegate to the second Continental Con- 
gress, and arrived there on May 10. He had been seriously ill, 
and was only partially recovered. When he left home Mrs. 
Adams writes of that second separation, fraught in many respects 
with more perils and fears than the first : 

'" I felt very anxious about you, though I endeavored to be very insen- 
sible and heroic, yet my heart felt like a heart of lead." 

A few hours earlier he had written to her: 

" In case of real danger, of which you cannot fail to have previous 
intimations, fly to the woods with our children." 

This was not advice suggested by over-cautious affection. 
Only a few days before the Yankee farmers in their homesjiun 
had confronted the redcoats for the first time. The air was still 
full of the excitement of the fight. It had taken place only a 
few miles from the farmhouse where Mr. Adams had been 
compelled to leave his wife and her young children. A little 
way off rode his Majesty's ships of war. It was by no means 
impossible that the English sailors would swoop down on the 
unguarded coast and spread wide havoc among the quiet coun- 
try homes to revenge on the rebels the 19th of April. 

Mrs. Adams proved equal to the high demands made upon 
her courage and fortitude at this trying period. A few lines 
from a letter written in May, 1775, to her husband, give a vivid 
picture of the confusion and discomfort mto which the little 
household was thrown at this time. 

"Soldiers coming in for a lodging, for breakfast, for supjier, for drinks. 



32 Our Presidents. 



etc. Sometimes refugees from Boston, tired and fatigued, seek an asylum 
for a day, a night, a week. You can hardly imagine how we live; yet 
' To the houseless child of v/ant 
Our doors are open still ; 
And though our portions are but scant. 
We give them with good will.' 
" Hitherto I have been able to maintain a calmness and presence of 
mind. I hope I shall, let the exigency of the time be what it will." 

These were words to inspire a man with hope and courage, 
if his own failed him. At the time they were written, the 
American army, fifteen thousand strong, were besieging Gage 
and his forces shut up and sorely distressed in Boston. 

A few days later Mrs. Adams watched on one of the Brain- 
tree hills, with her eldest bo)^ — the John Quincy with whom 
she had been reading Rollin's History — the burning of Charles- 
town; the distant Battle of Bunker Hill. 

Through all the danger and anguish of that time her heroic 
soul did not succumb. 

" I would not have you distressed about me," she writes to her husband 
early in July, when the smoke of the battle, the fury of the cannonade, 
must have seemed still to linger in the air. " Danger, they say, makes 
people valiant. Hitherto I have been distressed, but not dismayed. I 
have felt for my country and her sons. I have bled with them and for 
them." 

At this time there was fear lest her letters should fall into the 
enemies' hands. Mr. Adams urged his wife to write him over 
an assumed name. She chose that of Portia. No one v/ho 
reads her letters will be surprised at this. 

Meanwhile John Adams, keenly anxious for his family, full 
of wrath and grief over the sufferings of that " beloved town," 
as he called Boston, was doing his work with passionate energy 
and zeal. It exasperated his fiery temper almost beyond endur- 
ance, that others could not keep pace with his strong virile step. 
It was not in his fiery, dauntless nature to adopt half measures. 



John Adams. 33 

to cling to futile hopes that Great Britain might yet relent and 
come to terms with her colonies. He believed the day for 
arguments and appeals was past. He saw clearer than many of 
his colleagues that America's only salvation was in independ- 
ence, and that she would have to fight for this. 

It Avas not strange that the prospect of a war, waged by the 
scant colonies at such tremendous odds, with the great con- 
quering military and naval power of the world, should have 
struck terror to the soul of many a true patriot. But John 
Adams's dauntless, impetuous nature felt an impatient scorn 
for those who paused to count the costs where all that was 
dear to freemen was at stake. He was inflamed with rage 
when a motion for a second memorial to George HI. was car- 
ried in Congress. He felt that the day for appeals had passed; 
the time for action had come. 

But to his infinite satisfaction the Congress at last took a 
step from which there was no retreat, and advised Massa- 
chusetts Bay, which in its prevailing confusion and disorder 
had applied for counsel, to " establish a government of its 
own." 

Mr. Adams's sagacious mind perceived clearly all that was 
involved in this advice to organize a rebel government. But 
important as this measure was, there was still another and 
higher stake to be won. 

The Massachusetts delegate, with clear, patriotic forecast, 
perceived that all local struggles, like those of Concord and 
Lexington, would in the end be futile, unless Congress assumed 
responsibility for the army which was now besieging Boston. 
The war for American liberties must be a war in which every 
colony must take her part and fight for her life, or it was fore- 
doomed to failure. The struggle v/ith England would be 
unequal enough when America presented a united from to 
the foe. 

3 



34 Our Presidents. 



But the obstacles in the way of inducing Congress, by one 
bold stroke, to transform the " Army of Massachusetts " into 
the " Army of America " would have appeared insurmountable to 
a less fertile, energetic mind, or a less dauntless will than that 
of John Adams. 

George Washington had appeared at this second Congress, 
wearing his officer's uniform. The stately, handsome Virgin- 
ian, in the prime of his years, must have made a strong 
impression on the keen-sighted New Englander. The two 
had served together, as we have seen, in the first Congress, 
and by this time must each have formed very decided opinions 
of the other's mental and moral quality. John Adams made 
up his mind that the Virginian, George Washington, was the 
one man to command that brave, stanch, but undisciplined 
and ill-appointed army of yeomanry that had gathered after 
the Concord fight around Boston. 

Mr. Adams was perfectly aware of the force of the opposi- 
tion, the strong prejudices, the personal ambitions, that he 
would have to encounter if he attempted to carry his point. 
But these were not all. New England was immensely proud 
of her army of ill-clad, high-spirited patriots. Would she 
consent to see an alien and a stranger, little known at that 
time, placed at their head ? Would the proud, independent 
yeomanry be ready to serve under the calm, dignified, order- 
loving Westmoreland planter ? These questions might well 
have made the most resolute man pause. But John Adams 
had a splendid audacity, which in an emergency carried him 
over difficulties that appeared insurmountable to common eyes. 
His clear, practical vision saw, too, where the only chances of 
success lay. Argument and persuasion would avail nothing here. 
If the thing were done it must be done promptly, boldly. All 
the schoolboys know the story of that opening morning session, 
when John Adams rose and proposed before the astonished 



John Adams. 35 

mernbcis that Congress should adopt the army before Boston, 
and appoint Colonel Washington its commander. 

A breathless silence must have followed the motion. No 
wonder that Washington himself, alwaj^s modest, was startled 
out of his habitual self-control, and the proposed commander- 
in-chief, covered Avith confusion, "darted into the library." 
But the work had been done in that critical moment. Where 
the leader had planted himself, the others slowly gathered and 
fell into line. A few days later George Washington was unani- 
mously chosen Commander-in-chief of the American army. 
The irrevocable step was taken now. There could be no 
retreats, no more looking back — no more appeals to George III. 

On the very day when his wife and his boy were listening 
to the distant battle of Bunker Hill, John Adams was writing 
triumphantly to his wife : 

" I can now inform you that the Congress have made choice of the 
modest and virtuous, the amiable, generous and brave George Washington, 
Esquire, to be General of the American arm)', and that he is to repair, as 
soon as possible, to the camp before Boston. This appointment will have 
a great effect in cementing and securing the union of these colonies. The 
continent is really in earnest in defending the country." 

Then in a little graver mood he goes on : 

" I begin to hope we shall not sit all summer. I hope the people of our 
province will treat the General with all that confidence and affection, that 
politeness and respect which is due to one of the most important characters in 
the world. The liberties of America depend upon him in a great degree." 

And at the close of this important historical letter the 
impetuous heart must have its way, and the writer breaks out : 
" My dear children, come here and kiss me." 

A recess of Congress, later that summer, permitted Mr. 
Adams to spend August with his family. The day must have 
been exciting under that ancient Braintree roof, with the 
luisband and father living over in the talk all the terrible hours 



3^ Our Presidents. 



through which the little household had passed in the early 
summer. 

But George Washington was now in the camp of the Amer- 
ican army, and his reception at Cambridge had more than 
fulfilled John Adams's wishes. 

Melancholy tidings followed immediately on the delegate's 
return to Congress. Amid his public cares he was harassed by 
constant anxiety for his family. Most of its members were 
prostrated by a severe epidemic which afflicted the neighbor- 
hood during the autumn following that dark summer of 1778. 

Mrs. Adams and three of her children were ill. She under- 
went the heavy grief in these dark days of losing her mother. 
Mr. Adams's brother also died of the epidemic. 

Letters, too, came with tantalizing slowness. They were 
transmitted by friends as opportunity offered, and it was highly 
important that they should be intrusted to safe hands. 

A paragraph or two from one of his letters to his wife 
throws a vivid light on the writer's condition at this time : 

" You may easily imagine the state of mind in which I am at present. 
Uncertain and apprehensive at first, I suddenly thought of setting off im- 
mediately for Braintree, and have not yet determined otherwise. Yet the 
state of public affairs is so critical, that I am half afraid to leave my sta- 
tion, although my presence here is of no great consequence. 

" I feel, I tremble for you. Poor Tommy I I hope by this time, how- 
ever, he has recovered his plump cheeks and his fine bloom. 

" At this distance I can do no good to you and yours. I pray God to 
support you. I am so far from thinking you melancholy that I am charmed 
with that admirable fortitude, that divine spirit of resignation which appears 
in your letters. I cannot express the satisfaction it gives me, nor how much 
it contributes to support me." 

And the wife, in tlie shortening October days, when the epi- 
demic was allayed, though worn with her recent illness and 
heavy bereavement, could still count her " many blessings 
left " when she wrote : 



John Adams. 2>7 

" I might have been stripped of my children, as many others have been. 
I might — oh, forbid it, Heaven ! — I might have been left a solitary widow." 

In December of that year John Adams again made one of 
his brief visits home. He returned to Congress in company 
with Elbridge Gerry. On that long journey, in the bitter 
weather, the two New England delegates acquired a strong lik- 
ing for each other. This bore fruit long afterward when botli 
had gained high distinction in the world. 

The change from the passionately patriotic atmosphere of 
Massachusetts to the colder one of Philadelphia, was always 
certain, at first, to dispirit John Adams. But a little later his 
mood had changed so far, that he was writing to his wife about 
'' marching in the rank and file if possibly a contingency should 
happen to make doing it proper. I will not fail to march if it 
should," he adds, in his positive way. 

A little later, he had startling news from home. His wife's 
letter of March ?., 1776, was interrupted "by the roar of cannon, 
which shook the house." Washington's strategy was justified 
at last. The long inactivity in which the American lines 
had lain before Boston, was broken one Saturday evening by 
" a cannonade and bombardment, which, with intervals, was 
continued through the night." This was a feint to deceive the 
enemy ; but on Tuesday morning the American troops held pos- 
session of Dorchester Hill. A little later the British evacuated 
Boston town, and the sufferings of the blockaded little sea- 
port, which thus far had borne the brunt of the war, were 
ended. 

Mrs. Adams's letters, written almost in the heart of the 
scene, have the life and charm of one who is on the spot. The 
reader is made to feel, in many a hasty, vivid line, the excite- 
ment and peril of that historic March. Mrs. Adams's courage 
and fortitude sustained her husband in his absence and anxiety. 

But in a little while the letters break out exultant over the 



38 Our Presidents. 



departure of the enemy ; a fact whicli, to the writer herself, 
though before her eyes, seemed too wonderful to be true. 

Before that month was over John Adams could write to his 
wife : 

" I give you joy of Boston — once more the habitation of Americans." 

Two days later his wife's letter contains a paragraph too 
interesting to be omitted : 

" The town in general is left in a better state than we expected, more 
owing to a precipitate flight than any regard for the inhabitants, though 
some people discovered a sense of honor and justice, and have left the rent 
of the houses in which they were, and the furniture unhurt, or, if damaged, 
sufificient to make it good." 

One cannot read these lines without feeling that they re- 
flect honor on human nature. Those Tories, or British officers, 
who occupied the deserted houses of Boston during the long 
blockade, could hardly have been expected to regard them- 
selves as the tenants of their enemies. 

In the same letter Mrs. Adams continues, in words which 
show how great must have been the relief and rejoicing of 
Massachusetts : 

"I feel very differently at the appi'oach of spring from what I did a 
month ago. We knew not then whether we could plant or sow with safety ; 
whether, where we had tilled we could reap the fruits of our own industry ; 
whether we could rest in our own cottages, or whether we should be driven 
from the sea-coast to seek shelter in the wilderness ; but now we feel a tem- 
porary peace, and the poor inhabitants are returning to their homes." 

The reader must have turned, too, with a sigh of infinite 
relief from these letters to the great work which was absorbing 
his heart and brain at this period. 

It was nothing less than the Declaration of Independence. 
All that spring and early summer of 1776, the Massachusetts del- 
egate had been moving heaven and earth to bring Congress to 



John Adams. 39 

the point. He called the measure, in his own strong, incisive 
words, "the end of his creation." 

But all the energies of that keen, disciplined mind, that 
ardent purpose, that indomitable will, had been severely taxed 
before the Declaration was carried which was to prove of such 
infinite importance to America, to the world. 

Here again, as so often before, and afterward, the eager, 
impetuous nature, always sure of what it wanted, always see- 
ing the one straight path to it, had to outstrip the slow, the tim- 
orous, the vacillating. 

The history of that time and of Mr. Adams's herculean 
labors, cannot be written here. It was Thomas Jefferson who 
was the author of the Declaration of Independence ; it was 
John Adams who, in the debate before Congress as to its adop- 
tion, carried that body with him. He did this by a speech of 
thrilling earnestness, of splendid eloquence. In that great hour, 
as his audience afterward affirmed, " the man seemed lifted out 
of himself. " He appeared to have no idea of the grandeur of 
his effort. He was only conscious of the issues which hung 
upon the moment. When he ceased, " his praise was in every- 
body's mouth." 

July 3, he wrote two letters to his v/ife. In one of them 
he said : 

"Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated 
in America; and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among 
men." 

In the other he wrote : 

" You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am 
well aware of the blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this 
Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the 
gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the 
end is worth all tlio means." 

Precisely seventeen months from tJK' day on which John 



40 Our Presidents. 



Adams wrote these two letters to his wife, he was appointed 
commissioner to the court of France. 

At the time when this new field of activity so imexpectedly 
opened to him he had been forced by the condition of his 
health, much broken by long and engrossing services, to resign 
his position in Congress and return home, where he had barely 
resumed his professional labors. These intervening months 
had been immensely important to America. Yet they had 
formed a period of such varied disasters to her armies that the 
hearts of the stanchest patriots had sunk with the defeat on 
Long Island, the evacuation of New York, the retreat through 
the Jerseys, and the abandonment of Philadelphia. Mr. Adams, 
like every American, had, in those days, moods of despondency, 
and he expressed these in his trenchant style. But his patriot- 
ism was never long in recovering its old, resolute, hopeful 
temper. 

After the Declaration of Independence he had continued 
to devote himself unsparingly to the service of Congress. He 
had done his part in forming the " League which held the 
Thirteen States " together, and, although it was a slight, imper- 
fect bond, it still served its purpose, and was as strong a union 
as popular sentiment then permitted. 

He had been placed at the head of the War Department. 
The position had involved enormous labors and responsibilities. 
In the work of army organization he had, of course, to encoun- 
ter a world of military pride, red tape, and jealousy. The 
earnestness, sincerity, and devotion of the civilian exercised a 
controlling influence over all who had relations with him while 
he was in this office. 

The foreign appointment must have taken him by surprise. 
It opened to the Nev/ Englander, who had laid down the 
armor of public service, a new and untried field for his 
energies. 



John Adams. 4^ 

If the French appointment was an lionor, it was also a most 
perilous one. This was proved by the suggestion that accom- 
panied it, "that he should have his dispatch bags sufficiently 
weighted to sink them instantly in case of capture." 

The chances of his seizure were by no means small. In 
that case, his position would be extremely unpleasant. In the 
year 1777 John Adams was, in the eyes of the English Govern- 
ment, a ringleader of rebels. No doubt his capture, and his 
imprisonment in the Tower, would have thrilled the court of 
George III. with joy, only second to that which would have 
been felt at the seizure of George Washington. 

But long, harsh imprisonment might not be the worst fate 
with which the American would have to count. In those stern 
times, the doom of the traitor, on English statute-books, was 
one that must shake the steadiest nerves to contemplate. It 
was by no means certain that John Adams, once in the grasp 
of English law, would not be held amenable to its extreme 
penalty. 

Then if, by good fortune, he escaped the British ships, there 
was the long, stormy passage across the Atlantic, no light expe- 
rience for a man in his uncertain health ; and there was, too, 
first and last, the thought of the long, cruel separation from his 
family. 

John Adams took one day to look all these things in the face. 
Then he made up his mind to go. 

He sailed in the waning winter, in the frigate Boston. His 
son, John Quincy Adams, the boy who, in the Bunker Hill 
days, had read Rollin's History to his mother, accompanied 
liim. 

The two had been out less than a week when an English 
ship-of-war gave chase to the frigate. " Adams urged the crew 
to fight desperately." It was better to die on board the Boston, 
better to sink in the sea, than be taken prisoner. 



42 Ottr Presidents. 



Fortunately the frigate escaped. "On March 31, 1778, she 
was riding safely at anchor in the harbor at Bordeaux. " 

Mr. Adams's first foreign mission occupied nearly a year and 
a half, yet it did not afford any large field of activity to his 
abounding energies. The famous alliance with France had 
already been consummated. 

Dr. Franklin was then having his career of unparalleled 
popularity in France. The shrewd, simple American had cap- 
tivated the polished, critical Parisians. He, of course, threw 
the other commissioners much into the background. Mr. 
Adams was not a man to enjoy remaining there, and he recom- 
mended that the commission should be intrusted to one person, 
though this would exclude himself. It was a foregone conclu- 
sion that Dr. Franklin would receive the appointment. Mr. 
Adams's advice was followed, and he was left with nothing to 
do but enjoy the brilliant Paris world around him. Idleness 
was most distasteful to him. 

" I cannot eat pensions and sinecures ; they would stick in 
my throat," he characteristically wrote to his wife. 

He returned in the same ship with the first minister France 
ever sent to America. John Quincy Adams, who accompanied 
his father, had been making the most of his time, seeing with 
his grave young eyes the wonderful French world about him, 
and drawing his own conclusions. On the long voyage the boy 
of eleven gave the French minister and his secretary lessons in 
English, and proved an inexorable teacher. 

On reaching home Mr. Adams was soon in the thick of 
affairs. He had a leading part in framing the new constitution 
for Massachusetts. The work was hardly done before he was 
summoned to a wider arena. 

In 1779 he sailed again in the French frigate which had 
brought him home. This time he was appointed " Minister to 
treat with Great Britain for peace and commerce." 



John Adams. 43 

The vessel, Le Sensible, in which Louis XVI. had invited 
Mr. Adams to sail with the French Minister to America, proved 
imseaworthy on her homeward passage. She barely reached 
Ferrol, to be laid up for repairs. Mr. Adams Avould not wait. 
He resolved to continue the journey by land. This time the 
two oldest sons accompanied their father. They went through 
Spain. The condition of the roads, the lack of accommoda- 
tions, made their journey one of almost incredible hardship. 

When Mr. Adams left his native shores on this second mis- 
sion, he little dreamed how long his absence was to be, or what 
an important role he was to play in the politics of several Euro- 
pean governments. 

This period forms, in many respects, the most picturesque 
and dramatic portion of John Adams's life. It is especially 
tempting to the biographer. To do it any sort of justice would 
require a volume. 

Arrived at last in France, Mr. Adams's first experiences were 
not encouraging. He was at once brought into critical relations 
with the Compte de Vergennes, who was at the head of the 
foreign affairs of France. 

The keen, polished, autocratic, and dangerous French diplo- 
mat — who cared only for the affairs of France, who hated only 
England — and the outspoken, independent, resolute American 
did not get on well together. 

The story cannot be dwelt on here. Mr. Adams made 
serious mistakes at first. His lack of tact, his insistence, his 
blunt directness, all astonished and offended the cool, brilliant, 
crafty nobkman, trained in the wiles and subterfuges of the 
diplomatic school of his day. 

But though the two matched their strength on many an im- 
portant field which required the exercise of the highest, most 
far-sighted statesmanship, the American did not in the end come 
worsted from the encounter. 



# 
44 Our Presidents. 



Indeed, Mr. Adams, though conspicuously lacking in the 
traditions and qualities of a finished diplomat, proved himself 
"precisely the man for the place and the duty." 

It was unfortunate that, at this period, a strong ill feeling 
developed itself between himself and Dr. Franklin. No doubt 
the differences in their mental and moral constitutions had 
much to do with their deep alienation. 

Between Vergennes and Dr. Franklin Mr. Adams's position 
could not have been a very comfortable one, and he always 
lacked the tact to conciliate an enemy. 

Perhaps his position at the French Court had much to do 
with his journey to Holland in July, 1780, though he was revolv- 
ing in his mind the chances of negotiating a Dutch loan for his 
impoverished country. 

Mr. Adams now had the field to himself, and he worked 
with untiring energy. The Dutch at that time knew little about 
America. He made it his aim to enlighten them, both in his 
conversation and in a series of letters which he published. 

But the sky was suddenly overcast. Great Britain declared 
war against Holland. Laurens, a negotiator sent by Congress 
to the Dutch, had been captured, and with him some letters 
which the English Government chose to regard as a breach of 
Holland's engagements. In this state of affairs Mr. Adams was 
summoned to France by Vergennes. The Compte, alarmed at 
the exhausted condition of the French treasury, was now desir- 
ous of concluding a peace. He did not intend that American 
interests should stand in the way. 

Before Mr. Adams left he had been appointed minister to 
Holland in place of Laurens, who was now immured in the 
Tower of London. 

But when Mr. Adams arrived in France, the prospects for 
peace were not flattering. England, arrogant and exasper- 
ated, could not bring herself to the point of negotiating on 



John Adams. 45 

equal terms with her former colonies. Mr. Adams was ex- 
tremely suspicious of Vergennes, and having little to do in 
France soon returned to Holland, where he inspired much 
friendly feeling toward America "among the merchants and 
the popular party." 

The existence of this feeling Avas due largely to Mr. Adams's 
own exertions; but anger with Great Britain, as well as the cap- 
ture of Lord Cornwallis and his army, had much to do with 
Dutch sentiment toward America. 

Mr. Adams now showed another instance of that splendid 
audacity which had served him so well when he proposed George 
Washington as Commander-in-chief of the American armies. 
He presented a formal demand to the States-General that he 
should be recognized as the minister of an independent nation. 

It is impossible at the present day to form any conception 
of the boldness of this demand. It was made in defiance of all 
the traditions and habits of diplomacy. Behind the man who 
stood before the States-General with this high claim for recogni- 
tion was a company of small impoverished provinces, loosely 
bound together, the whole country still in arms for that inde- 
pendence their representative boldly asserted they had won. 

It is not difficult to see that Mr. Adams's attitude might 
easily have become one of supreme ridiculousness. But his 
sublime audacity carried the day. There were delays, of course. 
In such an unprecedented affair delegates must revert to constit- 
uents for instructions. But on April 19, 1782, tlie high stake 
was won. At that date the recognition of Mr. Adams took 
place, and he was installed American minister at the Hague. 

One's imagination at this distance of time can only repro- 
duce in the dimmest form the grand scene which crowned this 
alliance. The French minister, the Duke de la Vanguyon, who, 
influenced by Vergennes, had all along covertly opposed the 
recognition, now i)rofessed immense satisfaction with it. He 



4^ Our Presidents. 



gave the new minister a splendid banquet. In the presence of 
the grand European diplomats he introduced the American as 
a member of their distinguished body. No wonder Mr. Adams 
was elated at his immense triumph. At that very hour England 
was insisting that no free and independent United States of 
America existed. Those who assumed the title were a companj^ 
of colonies in rebellion against their lawful Sovereign. But of 
this time Mr. Adams is best entitled to speak : 

" One thing, thank God ! is certain. I have planted the 
American standard at the Hague. There let it wave and fly 
in triumph over Sir Joseph Yorke and British pride. I shall 
look down upon the flagstaff with pleasure from the other 
world." 

Before the end of the year the new minister succeeded in 
obtaining a loan of two million dollars from the shrewd Dutch 
bankers. This loan proved of incalculable service to his dis- 
tressed country. 

When the year 1782 opened there were plentiful signs that 
the ministry of Lord North was approaching its end. A little 
later it fell. 

This narrative now approaches a point in Mr. Adams's life 
which brings the reader to the most momentous event in Ameri- 
can history. It is the signing of the Treaty of Peace between 
the United States and England. 

Familiar as the ground is it tempts one to linger on it. 
The long negotiation had episodes of intense dramatic interest. 
The two ancient nations and the young one engaged in nego- 
tiating the treaty had affairs at stake that often clashed. The 
commissioners could not look to Vergennes for support. He 
was at heart concerned only for the welfare of France. 

Mr. Adams, coming from Holland, appeared in Paris at a 
critical moment. His unflinching courage braced his colleagues, 
Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jay. He came upon a scene of endless 



John Adams. 47 

debates, arguments, bickerings. The English Cabinet yielded 
slowly to American demands. The negotiations reached a point 
many times when it looked as though they must be broken off. 
But Mr. Adams's moral courage never flinched. Mr. Jay, with 
all his resolution, could not have held his ground without the 
aid of his bold, determined colleague. The Boundaries, the 
Fisheries, the Navigation of the Mississip])i — all vital ques- 
tions — were settled at last. The Americans had, with good 
reason, lost confidence in Vergennes. They carried on their 
most important negotiations without consulting him. When 
the amazed count learned this, it was too late for him to inter- 
fere, but he loudly complained that the Americans had not 
kept faith with him. 

The only charge, however, which could be brought against 
them was "a disregard of diplomatic formalities." They kept 
their word with their ancient ally ; they made no separate peace. 
On the day that England signed her treaty with the United 
States, she signed her treaty also with France. The date was 
September 3, 1783. 

Long before this Mr. Adams had grown weary and dis- 
gusted. Despite the honorable role he had played in affairs 
his heart had never been in Europe. It was far away under 
the quiet roof at Braintree, with the brave, tender wife who 
counted the days of his absence until they grew into years. 

He sent in his resignation as soon as he felt the Treaty of 
Peace assured, and declared in his positive fashion that if the ac- 
ceptance did not duly arrive " he would come back without it." 
But, despite his utmost efforts, he could not leave the field of 
his present activity. Not long after the signing of the Treaty 
of Peace he, with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jay, was commissioned 
to negotiate a treaty of commerce with Great Britain. This 
was a matter he had much at heart. He felt that if the two 
nations could agree to forget the nasi, and enter into a gener(_)us 



4^ Our Presidents. 



commercial alliance, it would be immensely for the advantage 
of both. An opportunity seemed suddenly afforded him to pro- 
mote a large and generous policy. He would not desert his post. 

But he now wrote his wife to join him with his daughter. 

The long strain told on him at last. During this memor- 
able autumn he was prostrated by a " fever of great severity." 
When he partially recovered he visited London. Only a little 
while before his head would have been in extreme jeopardy 
had he ventured it there. He must have thought of this often 
as he walked about the busy, crowded streets of the ancient city. 

During this time he witnessed one event which must always 
have overshadowed in his memory all that he then saw in 
London. 

Mr. Adams was in Parliament on that day when George 
in. announced that " he had made a Treaty of Peace with the 
colonies no longer, but now the Independent States of North 
America." Here, again, it is not easy to conceive the emotions 
with which one stranger in that large, breathless audience lis- 
tened to the royal speech. 

A little later Mr. Adams, still an invalid, was forced to 
undertake a long winter journey to Holland. His object was 
to negotiate a fresh loan with the Dutch bankers, already ap- 
palled by the draughts which the States had made on them. 
He actually succeeded in obtaining fresh funds from these 
shrewd money-lenders. The Fates seem to have ordained 
that Mr. Adams should succeed in all that he attempted in 
Holland. 

Meanwhile a fresh commission arrived from Congress and 
included Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jefferson. The three men were 
empowered to negotiate commercial treaties with European 
powers. The new government was taking its place " in the 
stately march of the nations. " 

The summer of 1784 brought Mr. Adams a great happiness- 



John Adams. 49 

His wife and daugliter joined him. The entire family were 
now abroad. They set up housekeeping in Auteuil, near Paris. 
He now enjoyed a season of (juiet, domestic life, amid public 
labors that were not burdensome. But Congress had not ex- 
hausted the honors it had of late years heaped on him. The 
last was the crowning one. February 24, 1785, he was ap- 
pointed minister to Great Britain. Even the cool Compte de 
V^ergennes was impressed by all the circumstances of this new 
embassy, and said to Mr. Adams, " It is a mark." 

Mr. Adams must have been more or less than human had 
he not felt keenly the distinction conferred upon him. 

But the position of the first minister which America sent to 
England was necessarily a delicate and trying one. 

Mr. Adams's first presentation was private. The interview 
between the monarch of the House of Brunswick and the 
Braintree lawyer was, in some of its aspects, one of the most 
momentous scenes which ever occurred in the lives of the two 
men. 

George III. was gracious on this occasion. What he felt 
beneath the trained royal demeanor did not appear. But he 
v/as a man of small intellect and imagination. Everybody 
knows what he said of Shakspere to Frances Burney. 

The new minister was equal to the occasion. He after- 
ward avowed that he felt some agitation. A little while before 
the monarch and the minister had been saying terrible things of 
each other. But even in the presence of royalty the Amer- 
ican's proud independence did not fail him. When the king 
intimated his knowledge of Mr. Adams's distrust of the French 
Ministry, the old dauntless temper rung out in his reply : " I 
must avow to your Majesty that I have no attachment but to 
my own country." 

Royal ears do not often hear speeches of that temper. 
This one appeared to please the king. 
4 



50 Our Presidents. 



But tliough things went smoothly at that first presentation, 
Mr. Adams's position at the English Court was not an agree- 
able one. He was in a critical and hostile atmosphere, and his 
salary was totally insufficient to the demands of the place. 

The queen, too, narrow and prejudiced, treated his wife 
with conspicuous coldness. The daughter of the Weymouth 
pastor felt keenly the burden imposed upon her of being the 
first representative of American womanhood at the British 
Court. 

She was equal to her part ; but the treatment she received 
from royalty, as well as from the court, who followed its 
example, could not fail to wound a proud and sensitive spirit. 
The first minister which America had sent to England had 
cherished high hopes of establishing cordial relations between 
the two countries. He was doomed to disappointment. 
England did not forgive America for her victory in the field ; 
and jealous of commercial rivalry, she was bent on crippling 
the foreign trade of the United States. Their "League" was 
at this time so loose and feeble a bond that the British Gov- 
ernment did not hesitate to treat them with haughty insolence. 

When Mr. Adams was convinced that he could not serve 
his country by remaining in England, he sent in his resignation. 

He sailed for home April 20, 1788. He never again set 
foot on a foreign shore. 

John Adams returned to America one of its greatest men. 
He was now to enter an untried political field. The Constitu- 
tion, created amid vast labors and compromises, was at this 
juncture to undergo its first trial. 

Washington was elected first President. It was thought 
fitting that New England should be represented by the Vice- 
Presidency. Mr. Adams's eminent services and high character 
entitled him to the election. 

The long, bitter feud between himself and Alexander 



John Adams. 5 ^ 

Hamilton appears to have had its beginnings in events con- 
nected with the election. 

Alexander Hamilton, usually generous and magnanimous, 
entertained one of those inveterate prejudices against Mr, 
Adams, which men of strong, autocratic nature often exhibit 
toward those whom they cannot influence. Pliancy was not in 
the Adams fiber. The Vice-President was as thorough and 
outspoken in his enmities as he was in everything else. 

So, from the necessities of their mental and moral constitu- 
tion, the two passionate and obstinate leaders were brought 
into sharp antagonism. They were both members of that great 
Federal party which had organized the new government and 
started it on its career. Hamilton had fairly won his place as 
the leader of this party by his splendid abilities and his devoted 
patriotism. His services during those exciting months after 
the Constitution, framed at Philadelphia, had been brought 
before a perplexed, disheartened and suspicious people, cannot 
be overrated. A little later, his daring and successful measures 
to infuse strength and energy into the paralyzed finances of the 
nation entitle him to his place in American history. To his 
matchless endowments, he added rare and lovable qualities of 
character which pre-eminently fitted him to be a leader of men. 
Mr. Adams was a redoubtable foe. It was the fate of these 
two that their political relations should bring into strong relief 
the defects and weaknesses in the characters of each. 

Mr. Adams's first term as Vice-President proved a compar- 
atively smooth one. In all the constructive measures before 
Congress he gave Hamilton valuable assistance by voting with 
the Federalists. 

Mr. Adams was re-elected. The second term of his office 
was the period of the French Revolution. That mighty 
upheaval shook the United States. The passionate feehng of 
the time carried everything before it. Even Washington's 



52 Our Presidents. 



great name and vast services could not save him from the 
fiercest attacks of calumny. The Vice-President seems to have 
mostly escaped at this time. 

When Washington retired, John Adams took his place. 
The summit of his ambitions was reached. But Hamilton had 
covertly used his great influence to prevent a unanimous elec- 
tion. It was carried by a narrow majority. Mr. Adams felt 
this strongly. When he learned the facts he v/as naturally 
filled with resentment. The acrimony between these two 
distinguished men became at last "the most bitter feud in 
American history." 

It was certainly unfortunate for Mr. Adams that he had 
during his Presidency so powerful, and, in this instance, so 
vindictive a foe. 

The relations between the United States and France became 
now greatly strained. The Directory, inflated with its success, 
and carrying everything before it, actually refused to receive 
the new minister the United States had sent to France. 

This intolerable insult was followed by a shameful decree 
against American commerce. It had its origin in the angry 
disappointment with which the Directory learned of Mr. Adams's 
election. They had confidently hoped to see their favorite, 
Jefferson, President of the United States. 

Greatly as Mr. Adams resented these indignities, he kept 
his fiery temper under admirable control. He desired, if pos- 
sible, to avoid a collision with France. But the party which 
had elected him was strongly Anglican in its sympathies, and 
this made the President's position a delicate and perplexing one. 

A second mission was, however, sent to France. This time 
the envoys were received. The French treasury was impover- 
ished. Secret attempts were soon set in train to frighten or 
cajole the Americans into purchasing a peace by the payment 
of large sums. They indignantly rejected these base proposals. 



John Adams. 53 

The consequence was a fresh decree against American com- 
merce. 

When these facts became known in America, a wave of 
popular indignation swept over the land. There was a uni- 
versal cry for war. The President suddenly rose into great 
popularity. He acted with characteristic promptness and 
energy. The heart of the nation was with him. Washington 
was persuaded to leave his retirement at his beloved Mount 
Vernon, and organize the new army, of which he was to bo 
Commander-in-chief. 

The trouble about the appointment and precedence of the 
major generals belongs to this time. " Hamilton was resolved 
to stand next to Washington." But the President was strongly 
opposed to the arrangement, and this added fresh rancor to 
the old bitterness. Hamilton's large following supported their 
brilliant chief. Washington, with whom his former aide and 
Secretary of State was a great favorite, threw his influence into 
the same scale. That decided the matter. Mr. Adams had to 
yield. But it was impossible for him to do it with a good 
grace. 

The bold attitude of the United States took France by sur- 
prise. Absorbed in European politics and ambitions, she had 
no wish to expend her resources in a remote war on American 
battle-fields. 

Talleyrand, greatly chagrined that his attempts to corrupt 
the envoys had become known in America, sought with infinite 
tact and audacity to smooth over matters. The French Gov- 
ernment made conciliatory advances toward the United States. 
Mr. Adams, who always knew his own mind, resolved to meet 
these in the same spirit. American Presidents hesitate, as a 
rule, to act on their sole responsibility in dealing with such 
affairs. Mr. Adams had no scruples. He determined to send 
another embassy to France- 



54 Our Presidents. 



This measure was like a sudden thunderbolt to the Federal- 
ists. Hamilton and many of his followers desired a lasting 
rupture with France. 

From this time Mr. Adams and a large, influential section 
of his party were irreconcilably opposed to each other. The 
majority of his cabinet, even, sided openly or secretly with 
Hamilton. 

The mission to France proved a success. Napoleon Bo- 
naparte had now become First Consul of France, and was 
the real government. He had no designs on America, 
and all differences were soon adjusted with the young ruler, 
who had suddenly come to the foreground in French poli- 
tics. 

But though events justified Mr. Adams's policy, the Federal- 
ist leaders were implacable. Their passions blinded them to 
their own interests. The President's eyes were at last opened 
to the hostility of certain members of his cabinet, and he sum- 
marily dismissed them. 

His temper was greatly exasperated at this time, and his 
weaknesses and faults came to the surface. It was impossible 
for that impetuous, outspoken nature to disguise its feelings. 
No doubt Mr. Adams was unreasonable and obstinate, dogmatic 
and pugnacious, and often showed an unpardonable lack of tact 
and consideration for others. 

The mission to France, wise, statesmanlike, and patriotic a 
measure as posterity now admits it to have been, probably cost 
Mr. Adams his second term of office. 

The election found the Federal leaders full of bitterness and 
rancor, which divided and weakened their energies, while the 
forces of the new Republican party, under the masterly guid- 
ance of Jefferson, were united and alert. 

But it was probably Hamilton's pamphlet which dealt Mr. 
Adams's public life its death-blow. This pamphlet was designed 



John Adams. 55 

for circulation only among the Federalist leaders, but it fell 
into the hands of Aaron Burr, and was at once given to the 
world. 

While this paper arraigned the administration, and tried to 
prove its lack of wisdom, it yet closed with perfunctorily 
recommending Mr. Adams's re-election to the Presidency. 

All Hamilton's dispassionate friends had entreated him not 
to publish this document, but the cool, shrewd leader was invet- 
erately obstinate at this time. 

Jefferson's party could not have desired a better campaign 
document. Even Hamilton must have perceived his mistake 
when it was too late. 

Thomas Jefferson was elected third President of the United 
States, and Aaron Burr Vice-President. 

The nineteenth century was just two months and four days 
old when John Adams, a cruelly mortified, disappointed, and, 
as he believed, shamefully wronged man, left Washington for 
the last time in the early March morning. 

He would not remain to welcome his successor. It seemed 
a pity. In the time of the country's long agony he and Thomas 
Jefferson had worked together in perfect harmony and with 
devoted patriotism. Next to Washington, the young nation 
owed most to these two men. Yet when one takes into account 
John Adams's temperament and feelings, his behavior on that 
memorable morning is not surprising. 

Nobody can question that it would have been more dignified 
to remain and beam blandly on Jefferson's inauguration. Bui 
the ex-President had no notion of presenting himself a mark 
for the gaze of his triumphant foes. His behavior was, of 
course, an appalling violation of the etiquette of the occasion ; 
but the sturdy old patriot, who never had the fear of man 
before his eyes, acted out his honest feeling when he turned his 
back on Washington and started for Braintree. 



56 Our Presidents. 



The long, honorable, and brilliant public life of John Adams 
came to a close on that March morning. He was sixty-five 
years old ; he was to live beyond the first quarter of the cent- 
ury that had just opened. 

The simple home life which, at the height of his dazzling ca- 
reer in Europe, he had constantly longed for, now awaited him ; 
but he did not return to it with the applause and gratitude of 
the nation. The Federalist party, dismayed and enraged at the 
triumph of their opponents, laid their defeat at the ex-President's 
door. They insisted that the French mission was the real 
cause of their overthrow. Mr. Adams found himself for a while 
the most unpopular man in America. 

This v/as a cruel return for a life of the noblest, most unself- 
ish patriotism. He had, at least, the happy consciousness that 
he had served the country, which he felt had cast him off, with 
a perfect love. 

The active mind, withdrawn from public interests, did not 
devour itself. Mr, Adams was still eager and alert, as in his 
youth, over the great events of the world. He had his old de- 
light in books and writing ; he dwelt, with graphic, picturesque 
talk, on the scenes in which he had borne so conspicuous a part. 
It must have been a rare pleasure for those who lived in the 
first quarter of the century to listen, " in that quiet home near 
the roadside in Quincy," to the old statesman and patriot when 
his memory called up the great historic events and personages 
that were a part of his past. 

His pecuniary circumstances enabled him to live in the 
simple independence which had been the aspiration of his 
youth. His domestic affections were strong, and he found in 
his family and in the companionship and sympathy of his wife, 
a solace for all public ingratitude. 

With all her respect and affection for her husband, Mrs. 
Adams was too keen-sighted a woman not to have been aware 



John Adams. 57 



of the foibles and faults which marred his intrinsically noble 
character. 

It is much to his credit that he retained all his life, with 
such a Avoman, the romantic tenderness which he had inspired 
in her youth. She was not alone his devoted wife, she was 
his intellectual companion, his trusted counselor and friend. 

Mr. Adams's picture, in his old age, is that of a still hand- 
some man, with clear, strong lines, wide forehead and brows. 
The expression is eager, resolute, dominant. The large intel- 
lect, the keen insight, the dogged, masterful will, the impetuous 
temper, are all there. 

" His figure was large and round, scarcely exceeding middle 
height, but of a stout, well-knit frame, as he grew old inclining 
more and more to corpulence." 

He had a natural dignity and simplicity of presence and 
bearing which accompanied him through all the requirements 
and circumstances of his varied career. If he carried his plain, 
good manners, his air of quiet, impressive self-respect, into the 
audience-chamber of kings, it was because he could not do 
otherwise — because they were a part of himself. 

As years passed, Mr. Adams's violent feeling toward his 
political enemies gradually softened. He was incapable of small 
malevolence ; he never sought, by working in the dark, to in- 
jure his worst foe. It is said that the only man whom he never 
forgave was Alexander Hamilton. 

His weaknesses, his faults of vanity, obstinacy, bluntness, 
self-conceit, were precisely the kind to show conspicuous 
against his real greatness. They were not pleas.int while he 
lived. They made him many enemies. They cannot be 
pleasant for any biographer to dwell on. 

But he was, from first to last, unconscious as a child of these 
defects. Indeed, they were of a nature which he would not be 
likely to perceive. He was, therefore, with all his generosity, 



58 Our Presidents. 



unjust to his opponents ; he never could see the other side of 
the shield. He was, in his own opinion, immutably right. 

Such a temperament has usually moods of imprudence and 
rash confidence. Mr. Adams was no exception to the rule. 
He talked and wrote much ; he revealed his opinions of 
persons and events where it would have been wise to keep 
silent. This rash habit of speaking and writing could not fail 
to bring him into serious trouble, though it must be admitted 
he always, when the pinch came, stood courageously by his 
words. 

Both Mr. and Mrs. Adams had great satisfaction and pride 
in the career of their son, John Quincy Adams. The mother 
lived to see her eldest boy Secretary of State during Monroe's 
Administration. 

In time the great breach between Adams and Jefferson was 
healed. It took years for the former to forget and forgive. 
The reconciliation was largely due to Mrs. Adams's influence 
and efforts. Thomas Jefferson was the last man in the world 
to hold a grudge against his old friend because of the part he 
had played, or failed to play, at the inaugural ceremonies. 
The ex-Presidents had many sympathies and a world of expe- 
riences and reminiscences in common. They maintained a 
frequent correspondence for the rest of their lives. 

Mrs. Adams died in 181 8, at Quincy, where she had 
remained since the close of her husband's public life. 

Mr. Adams survived his Avife almost eight years. He 
received some agreeable public attentions. He was appointed 
a Presidential elector and voted for James Monroe. 

He also lived to see his son President of the United States. 

His mind was clear and active to within a few hours of his 
death. That occurred at sunset : 

July 4, 1826. 




ia 



^ 




THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

During the first quarter of this century an old man, whose 
voice people made long pilgrimages to hear, used often to relate 
an incident which had occurred in his early boyhood. It had 
made so powerful an impression, that he dwelt on it with enthu- 
siasm seventy years afterward. 

The story was that of a young boy, in an Indian camp 
pitched among the wild, densely wooded scenery at the foot of 
the mountains in central Virginia. The whole scene was full 
of solemn, picturesque features, well calculated to impress the 
imagination of a sensitive boy. A full moon rode in the sky, 
and the distant mountain peaks, and the dark, vast wilderness, 
and all the pleasant river-valley, lay in that still, tender light. 
All around the camp-fires sat groups of swarthy, motionless 
figures. The red flames flared on the dusky, savage faces, and 
around the brown, bared shoulders, and they looked like groups 
sculptured in bronze. 

In the silence and the moonlight, Ontassete, the famous 
Cherokee chief, was speaking to his people for the last time. 
The next day he was to sail for England, to plead their cause 
with that great court of which his fathers had never heard, but 
which now ruled the land where they had roamed in happy 
freedom. 

The chief must have spoken with passionate eloquence. The 
powerful voice rang through the still night. The clear articu- 
lation, the impressive gestures, all aided the effect of his words. 
The boy listened spell-bound, though he did not understand a 
syllable of all that solemn, impassioned speech. His heart, as 



6o Our Presidents. 



well as his imagination, must have been touched at that early 
time. " Through all his life he shov/ed a liking for Indians." 

His likings and bis opinions were long after to leave their 
mark in the history of nations. For the boy who heard the 
speech of the Cherokee chief in the moonlight, and who was to 
talk about it seventy years afterward, was Thomas Jefferson. 

He was born April 13, 1743, in the Shadwell homestead. 
This was named from his mother, *' who first saw the light 
in a London parish of that name." The homestead stood 
on a farm of nineteen hundred acres, in Albemarle County, 
Virginia. 

The boy's father was Peter Jefferson, and his mother was 
Jane Randolph. She had passed her youth on one of the to- 
bacco plantations of the James River, where Peter Jefferson 
saw her first, when she was only seventeen. He wooed and 
won and married her, and carried her away from the old stately 
home mansion, to his great, partially cleared farm on the banks 
of the Rivanna. 

The boy, born in the Shadwell homestead, had a good start. 
His father was a land surveyor, only a few years before George 
Washington undertook the same business. The owner of Shad- 
well farm was a Hercules in strength and stature. He singly 
performed feats which taxed the powers of three strong men. 
But he was also a man of much intelligence, shrewd sense, and 
force of character. County honors naturally gravitated to such 
a one. In due time, the Shadwell farmer became Justice of the 
peace, Colonel of Albemarle County, and Representative in the 
House of Burgesses. 

Jane Randolph, who came from the old Virginia stock, 
could never have regretted the choice of her youth, although 
her early married life must have involved many privations and 
hardships. 

Thomas was the first son, but he liad two elder sisters. 



Thomas Jefferson. 6 1 



Other children followed, until a large brood of Jeffersons had 
gathered in the farm homestead. 

Peter Jefferson had to leave that young family fatherless. 
The stalwart man died suddenly, August 17, 1757. His death 
occurred in that dark time for Virginia, two years after Brad- 
dock's defeat. Thomas was fourteen. There was nobody to 
control or advise him. The mother, with her young family 
about her, herself not yet forty years of age, appears to have 
placed unlimited confidence in her boy. From that time he 
became his own master. 

It had been the father's dying injunction that his son should 
be well educated. Thomas made up his mind to study with 
the Rev. James Maury, whose school was then regarded as the 
best in Virginia. 

The parsonage was only fourteen miles from the farm. 
Thomas entered the school, where he remained two years. By 
this time he was ready for the college of William and Mary. 

This was situated five days' ride from young Jefferson's 
home, in Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia. He set out for 
it, a lad hardly seventeen years old, in the early spring of 1760. 
" He had never at that time seen a town, or even a village of 
twenty houses." 

The little town of a thousand inhabitants, with its principal 
street unpaved, " three-quarters of a mile long, the Capitol at 
one end, the college at the other, and the public buildings in 
the middle," no doubt made the old capital seem an elegant 
metropolis to the rustic youth from the banks of the James. 

He was no Adonis — this lad, straight and tall and slender, 
as he rode up the broad old street of the capital. His sandy 
hair framed a freckled face. His cheek bones, as well as his 
chin, were prominent. He had large hands and feet. But he 
had bright hazel -gray eyes, and his smile showed perfect teeth. 
His movements and bearing had the ease and elasticity of a 



62 Our Presidents. 



youth spent much in free, healthy, out-door life, and his coun- 
tenance had an expression which at times must have made it 
very attractive. 

The young student had brought with him " the strength of 
the hills." He had a passion for out-door sports. Whenever a 
holiday released him from the Latin and Greek which he had 
studied at Mr. Maury's, he had devoted himself to hunting on 
a mountain in the neighborhood. He was extremely fond of 
chasing the game to cover, and was " sound of wind and swift 
of foot," as became the hardy old Jefferson breed. 

Thomas had a singularly loyal and affectionate nature. It 
would not permit him to forget, amid fresh scenes and in- 
terests, the home where the widowed mother sat, sat with her 
young daughters and one little son. That household on the 
Rivanna, with its young life and its unutterable loss and grief, 
reminds one of another household on the banks of the Rap- 
pahannock. 

But whatever memories and longings tugged at his heart- 
strings, Thomas Jefferson set himself bravely to work in the old 
college of William and Mary. He had an insatiable thirst for 
knowledge. He studied much of the time fifteen hours a day. 
Even that terrible strain did not break down the hardy consti- 
tution of the youth from the hills. At twilight he indulged in 
a little respite. " He rushed off to a great stone which formed 
a landmark a mile out of town, and this and the race back 
again " appear to have been his only regular exercise. 

Dr. Small, Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy, was a 
conspicuous figure in Jefferson's college life. The Scotchman 
and the student became companions and friends. The elder 
had a genius for teaching, and inspired the younger's soul with 
great enthusiasm for study. But the college life was not wholly 
one of books. With his ardent, generous nature, Thomas Jef- 
ferson was sure to be a favorite with his classmates. Even at 



Tbonuis Jefferson. 63 



this age he won tlie attention of men of the world, men of high 
character and great abihties. George Wyeth, the lawyer, and 
Francis Fauquier, the lieutenant-governor of the province, 
admitted the young student to their intimate companionship. 
Fauquier, gay, accomplished and agreeable, was just the sort of 
man to fascinate a college youth. The friendship, however, 
was not without its danger, as this elegant man had a deep 
passion for gaming. Jefferson, however, escaped unharmed 
from the powerful example. He was much at the palace, as 
the official residence was called in the stately old colonial 
phrase. The Scotch tutor and the distinguished lawyer were 
constant guests with himself. There was immense mental stim- 
ulus for young Jefferson in this rare companionship. In that 
social atmosphere his shy and simple manners must have acquired 
self command and polish. His eager, sensitive nature fell 
under noble and elevating influences at this period. All his 
after life he spoke with solemn fervor of the immense debt 
which he owed to three men, his beloved tutor. Dr. Small, George 
Wyeth, and Peyton Randolph. They were the models which 
he chose for his youth. All the attractions of his host could 
not blind him to the vice of gambling. Indeed, his horror of 
it became so strong that " when he had a roof of his own he 
would never allow a card under it." 

Yet, with all his omnivorous study and the society of his 
seniors, the boy from the Shadwell farm was by no means a 
prig. He had his share in the pleasures and amusements of the 
ancient capital. He had a passion for music, and his violin 
was a source of never-ending delight to him. He danced min- 
uets late into the night in the Apollo, that " great room of the 
old Raleigh tavern," which was soon afterward to be put to a 
very different service. 

Jefferson lost his heart within those old historic walls. The 
first romance of his life came to him before he was nineteen 



64 Our Presidents. 



years old. The charms of Belinda, or Rebecca Burwell proved 
powerful enough to win the thoughts of the devoted student 
from his books. 

The lovely face, the graceful form, which had moved by his 
side in the dance, haunted him by night and day. It was not a 
mere flitting fancy either. It survived the tests of time and 
absence. After two years he returned to Shadv/ell, with his 
law-books and his violin, but the sweet face hovered around 
him and made sore havoc with the studies and ambitions of the 
youth of twenty. 

After wearing out the winter at Shadwell he returned to 
Williamsburg, sought Belinda, and put his fate to the touch. 
The young belle did not smile on her boy-suitor. She, of 
course, had no idea of what a heart and hand she was putting 
aside at that time. She was married soon afterward, and Jef- 
ferson's young romance was shattered. He believed his heart 
would never rally from that blow. 

In April, 1764, he reached his majority. He celebrated 
that event after the old English fashion, by ordering an avenue 
of locusts and sycamores to be planted near his house, though 
he was himself absent at Williamsburg. 

Young Jefferson took up the burdens and responsibilities of 
life bravely. The keen disappointment which his affections 
had undergone did not relax his energies or his varied interests 
in life. At tliis period he devoted himself to the improvement 
and cultivation of his farm. His agricultural tastes were as 
decided as those of that other great Virginian, Avho had now 
settled himself down a few miles away, happy and satisfied, to 
what he regarded as the work of his life — the charge of Mount 
Vernon. 

The young owner of Shadwell must have seemed to his 
neighbors to have in him the making of a splendid farmer. 
There was much more in Thomas Jefferson which neither he nor 



Thomas Jefferson. 65 



his friends suspected at this time. But he was certainly an 
agricultural genius. He began now that habit of experiments 
with soils and plants which he kept up throughout his long 
life. He had a variety of garden books, in wliich he made end- 
less entries. No changes of the weather, no aspects of sky or 
earth within his horizon, escaped him. The amount of work, 
planning and study, which he managed to put into every day 
was simply enormous. 

In the summer of 1765, Martha Jefferson, a beautiful girl 
of nineteen, was married to Dabney Carr, the most intimate and 
beloved of Jefferson's college class mates. Young Carr had 
one of those rare natures, whose charm and lovable quality 
lend a fresh grace to life. Like Jefferson, he was a law student. 
Even before they became brothers-in-law the two were con- 
stantly together. They had a favorite resort two miles from 
the homestead, on a lonely mountain, five hundred and eighty 
feet in height. This afterward became the historic Monticello. 
It was richly wooded to the summit. Far up the mountain- 
side grew a vast oak, under whose shade the young men made 
a rustic seat, and here they sat amid the wide green freedom 
and stillness, and studied their text-books, and had long intervals 
of talk. 

And what rare, delightful talk it must have been ! It seemed 
a pity there was nobody to hear it but the singing-birds and 
the squirrels darting among tlie mossy brovvn boles. No doubt 
the talk was illuminated with the glow and enthusiasm of youth. 
J>ut it must have had also the large reach, the profound earnest- 
ness, the intellectual force, of the two minds with which it orig- 
inated. 

It was these liours which were afterward to make that spot 
so famous in history. The two entered into a covenant that he 
who died first should be buried under the mighty oak. Jeffer- 
son kei)t his word. Long afterward, the place formed the burial- 
5 



66 Our Presidents. 



plot of his family, and at last, full of years and honors, he was 
laid by the side of his friend, beneath the very sods where they 
had sat and studied, and where they had held the long, wise, 
aspiring talk of their youth. It was the memory, too, of those 
days which made Jefferson choose that mountain-top for his 
home. 

The honey-moon was hardly over when the shadow of death 
fell on the homestead. Jane Jefferson's death, which took 
place in the autumn following her sister's marriage, was a great 
blow to her brother. She was about twenty-nine, and had 
shared his intellectual tastes. 

There was something almost portentous in Thomas Jeffer- 
son's industry. He rose at five in the morning. Happily, he 
did not allow himself scant sleep, for, with the sensible habit of 
the time, he went to bed at nine. He studied law each day ; 
he overlooked the details of his large estate ; he had a smart 
gallop on horseback, and a tramp usually to the summit of 
]\[onticello ; he was an inveterate reader, and kept up his Greek, 
Latin and French. Certainly when he lay down at night, he 
could not have been haunted by any remorse for misspent time. 

At Williamsburg, where he was not forced to combine the 
law-student with the farmer, he devoted himself more strenu- 
ously to his books. The vigorous frame he had inherited from 
his father, as well as his variety of interests and activities, alone 
saved him from breaking down. Probably not one youth in a 
thousand could have kept up with his stride. 

But there seems to have been no sign of flagging about 
Thomas Jefferson, when, in 1767, near his twenty-fourth birth- 
day, he was admitted to the bar. 

Jefferson had his young dreams, like George Washington, 
of going abroad. But the Stamp- Act kept the newly fledged 
lawyer at home, as matrimony and Mount Vernon had done in 
George Washington's case. 



Thomas Jefferson. 6^ 



Before he became engrossed in public events, however, Jef- 
ferson had entered into successful practice. His thorough 
preparation, as well as the times, were in his favor. There was 
much financial embarrassment among the old extravagant Vir- 
ginia planters at that period. Jefferson's clients grew so rapidly 
in numbers that in seven years he had doubled his estate. 

In May, 1765, when Jefferson was a law student, Patrick 
Henry, the old friend of his college days, was in Williamsburg. 
He was then a new member of the House of Burgesses, and 
Jefferson's guest. The latter stood in the lobby on that day 
vv'hen hi.s friend made his immortal speech against Great Brit- 
ain's attempt to tax her Colonies. He saw the tall, thin, negli- 
gently attired figure rise in its place ; he saw " the first shy, 
awkward movements, and heard the slow, faltering accents." 
But in a few moments a mighty change came over the new mem- 
ber. The passion of the orator had possessed him. He stood 
erect and masterful before the assemblage ; his face glowed. 
There was a thrilling music in his voice, a marvelous grace in 
his gestures. Every school-boy knows the history of the speech 
to which the youth in the lobby was listening spell-bound, like 
his elders. Fifty-nine years later Jefferson spoke of that scene 
with enthusiasm. It formed one of the great hours in American 
history. When Jefferson turned from the lobby that day, a 
new world of ideas and passions must have been kindled in his 
soul. 

After that day he talked no more of making the tour of 
Europe. 

Indeed, it was not until the year before he was admitted to 
the bar that he ever went beyond his native province. At that 
time he visited Annapolis, Philadelphia, " where he underwent 
inoculation for small-pox," and even got as far as New York. 
Here, in the little pleasant Dutch town of twenty thousand in- 
habitants, he chanced to find as a fellow lodger a small-framed, 



68 Our Presideiifs. 



keen, intelligent stranger from Marblehead. His name v/as 
Elbridge Gerry. 

The Virginian and the New Englander took a strong liking 
to each other. They little suspected the role each was destined 
to ijlay in the fortunes of the nation. 

In the winter of 1768-69, when Lord Botetourt, the new 
governor, came over from England, the old House of Burgesses 
was dismissed, and in the election which followed Thomas 
Jefferson was a candidate for Albemarle County. He was 
elected and entered on a public Hfe which was to continue for 
forty years. 

The first Virginia legislature in which Thomas Jefferson 
served forms a memorable chapter in American history. The 
British Parliament had now entered on that tyrannical course 
toward the Colonies which ended in the Revolution. Lord 
Botetourt, amazed and alarmed at the temper and purpose 
which his freshly elected House of Burgesses manifested toward 
the Parliamentary measures, dissolved the House. 

A meeting, as all the world knows, was held next day in the 
Apollo — that old room at the Raleigh tavern where Jefferson 
and Belinda had danced so many minuets. 

But the members had sterner work to do now than watch the 
smiles of beauty, or keep step to the joyous music. At that 
meeting the famous Non-Importation Agreement was drawn 
up, and eighty-eight members of the House of Burgesses 
signed it. 

Virginia indorsed the compact of her legislators in the most 
emphatic manner. " Every man who signed the agreement was 
re-elected ; every one who refused lost his re-election." 

A little later good tidings came across the sea. The colo- 
nists had their brief hour of rejoicing. The party in the British 
Parliament favorable to America was in power. 

Lord Botetourt, a high-spirited and honorable gentleman, 



Thomas Jcjferson. 69 



informed the House of Burgesses that ParHament intended to 
remove the taxes. 

But Lord North became Prime Minister. After that George 
III. and he had everything their own way. 

Lord Botetourt, indignant and mortified, demanded his re- 
call. He did not live to receive it. It was believed that he 
died of grief, because he was unable to keep his word to the 
Burgesses. 

The year 1769 found Thomas Jefferson an immensely busy 
man. His practice at the bar had increased to a hundred and 
ninety-eight cases before the General Court. Bands of work- 
men were clearing the summit of Monticello for his future 
home. An orchard was planted on a slope, and the busy law- 
yer, farmer and member of the House of Burgesses found time 
between the sessions to supervise the construction of a brick 
wing, which was intended to form part of a mansion. 

During the winter of the following year, the old Shadwell 
homestead was burned to the ground. Jefferson and his 
mother were visiting at a neighbor's. A servant brought the 
momentous tidings. It was natural that the young master 
should ask eagerly for the fate of his books. He learned that 
his violin alone had been saved ! 

Just twenty-three months from that day Thomas Jefferson 
was married. He, too, like Washington, had chosen a beautiful 
young widow whose name was Martha She was the daughter 
of John Wayles, one of Jefferson's associates at the ^Villiamsburg 
bar. She must have been married in her young girlhood, for 
she was a widow at twenty-two. 

Thomas Jefferson, the rising lawyer, landed proprietor, and 
representative of his native province, was a very different person 
from the bashful college youth who, seven years before, had 
stammered his suit to Belinda. 

His marriage with Martha Skelton took place on New Year, 



70 Our Presidents. 



1772. In a few days, the newly wedded pair started for their 
home on the mountain top, '' more than a hundred miles away, 
in a two-horse chaise." 

A heavy snow-fall came on during the journey. The bride 
reached her home late at night. The scene must have struck 
a chill to the heart of any but a brave woman. The house 
stood dark and lonely amid the snows. There was not a fire 
on the hearth, not a light in the windows, to welcome the new 
mistress. " The servants, not expecting the pair at that time, 
were asleep in their cabins." 

But this dismal introduction of the bridal pair to the pretty 
brick cottage on the summit of Monticello was no augury of 
the life that was to be lived there. Within those walls the two 
who came up to them amid the darkness, in the snows, were to 
enjoy years of rare domestic happiness. 

All accounts represent Mrs. Jefferson as a woman of much 
grace and charm of manner. Masses of auburn hair framed 
her fair, expressive face. Her tall, slight figure indicated only 
too well her fragile constitution. She sang ; she played the 
harpsichord ; and her musical gifts must have been a great 
delight to her husband. He had a peculiar tenderness and 
loyalty of nature, and while the woman he had chosen was 
the central joy of his hfe, he, in turn, made her supremely 
happy. 

The home on the mountain summit commanded a magnifi- 
cent prospect. Its stillness and coolness must have made it a 
delightful residence during the heats of the Virginia summers. 
On one side the mountain sloped abruptly to the valleys. On 
another, a mile and a half away, flowed the Rivanna, among 
the farms and wheat-fields, and beyond its banks was a heap of 
" blackened ruins," all that the flames had left of the Shadwell 
homestead. At one point the Blue Bridge walled the horizon, 
a hundred miles distant, while two hundred to the eastward was 



Thomas Jefferson. Jl 



the Atlantic. The little village of Charlottesville was only 
" three miles off." 

Monticello was the paradise to Thomas Jefferson that Mount 
Vernon was to George Washington. Neither would have ex- 
changed his farm and his homestead for the palace of a king. 
******* 

Meanwhile, the events which ushered in the Revolution 
were marching relentlessly forward. Jefferson, as we have 
seen, was married in January. In June of that year the King's 
little armed schooner, the Gaspee, of eight guns, was boarded 
and burned to the water's edge, while she lay aground off Nar- 
ragansett Point, seven miles below Providence. The patriotic 
Rhode Islanders had at last been driven to desperation. They 
had bearded the British Government after bearing for years its 
oppressive and intolerable restrictions on their commerce. Its 
orders had been carried out in the narrowest and hardest tem- 
per by insolent and overbearing officials. The fire which had 
long smouldered in the breasts of the hardy, resolute race 
which had settled along the New England sea-board was sure, 
sooner or later, to break out and sweep everything before it. 

" The burning of the Gaspee," with all the attendant cir- 
cumstances, rang through the Colonies. That bold deed could 
not fail to fire the blood of men in whose veins ran the free old 
Anglo-Saxon strain. A new feeling of common sympathy and 
interest was aroused in the Provinces. It was the immediate 
cause of another famous meeting in the old Raleigh tavern. 
Thomas Jefferson and Dabney Carr, with several other young 
members of the House of Burgesses, were assembled here one 
evening in the early March of 1773. The question which 
absorbed them was the attitude which Virginia, the eldest and 
most powerful of the Colonies, should assume toward Rhode 
Island at this juncture. The young Burgesses felt unbounded 
admiration at the daring act of the brave little Province. They 



72 Our Presidents. 



glowed with sympathy for her wrongs ; they felt these as their 
own. But the great outcome of the meeting and another held 
on the day following was the circular letter, written and dis- 
patched to the various Colonial Assemblies. 

The Committees of Correspondence had been organized. 
These were followed a little later by the Continental Congress. 

When they emerged from the Raleigh tavern the brothers-in- 
law little suspected the great historical importance of the work 
in which they had borne a share. But this was the last impor- 
tant act of one of the pair. Dabney Carr — that rare and lovable 
being whose brief record illuminates the page on which it is 
written — died suddenly of malignant typhoid fever. He had 
been married eight years. His small home, a few miles from 
Monticello, held a brood of six children. Jefferson had called 
his friend " the happiest man in the universe," though five 
years after his marriage the cottage contained but little prop- 
erty beside "a table, half a dozen chairs, and two or three 
servants." 

His beautiful young wife lost her reason for a while at the 
shock of his sudden death. At this time of anguish Jefferson 
came, as few brothers ever have done, to the help of the widow 
and the orphans. He took Martha, the sister, with her young 
family of children, home to Martha, the wife. He adopted 
them all — three sons and three daughters. He brought them 
up as tenderly, as generously, as carefully, as he did his own. 

When, at last, they laid him in his old age and his great- 
ness, by the side of Dabney Carr, he had kept faith with the 
friend of his youth. 

Children of his own came to him. The eldest, who bore 
the beloved name of Martha, survived him, but the others, of 
whom there were five, seem to have inherited their mother's 
fragile constitution. Four died in infancy. Mary, the fourth 
child, reached young womanhood. 



Thomas Jefferson. 73 



All the children were girls, except one son, who lived only 
a few days. 

The year 1774 brings the reader out on the great highway 
of American history. The story of the drowned tea-chests, of 
the Boston Port Bill, cannot be gone over here. The Revolu- 
tion was on its way. People felt its coming in the air before 
they realized what it meant. While the whole land was shaken 
with its approach, Thomas Jefferson was in the thick of events. 
Yet the lawyer from Monticello never in these exciting times 
lost his coolness or his serenity. 

AVhen the new Governor, Lord Dunmore, dissolved the re- 
fractory Plouse of Burgesses, there was another meeting at the 
Raleigh tavern. This time the Committee of Corresiiondence 
was instructed to propose the organization of a Continental 
Congress. Its members, composed of deputies from all the 
Colonies, were to meet annually. 

Before that year had closed the name of Thomas Jefferson 
was enrolled on the Bill of Attainder which the British Govern- 
ment was preparing against leading American rebels. 

The year 1774 was a busy one for Jefferson. He was en- 
larging his house for the occupation of his numerous family ; he 
was busy with his agricultural and professional duties, and he 
was also preparing a draft of instructions for the Virginia 
members of the Congress which was to meet at Philadelphia in 
September. 

It was characteristic of his calm, peace-loving temperament 
that, in these stormy times, his cherished idea was an address 
to the King. In this he felt the whole Congress must unite. 
The members should utter bravely in the royal ear their wrongs 
and grievances. Nothing could have been more offensive to 
the narrow-minded, arbitrary, obstinate King than the home- 
truths of this plain, forcible, but respectful petition. He did 
not deign to take the slightest notice of it. 



74 Our Presidents. 



It does not fall within the compass of this brief sketch to 
relate Thomas Jefferson's career in detail during the War of 
the Revolution, 

The day on which he took his seat in the Continental Con- 
gress was the day when it first learned the tidings of Bunker 
Hill. George Washington was already on his way to Cam- 
bridge to take command of the American army. 

The Colonies had sent the flov/er of their manhood to the 
Congress assembled in Philadelphia, " in a plain brick building 
up a narrow alley." These sixty members represented the 
greatest statesmen, the most gifted orators, the commanding in- 
tellects of the Provinces. 

Everybody knows that Jefferson's great work in the Conti- 
nental Congress was the Declaration of Independence. This 
immortal document was not prepared until the summer of 1776. 
Even after the day of Concord and Lexington, there were many 
delegates who still clung fondly to the hope of a reconciliation 
with England. Perhaps Jefferson had been among the number 
until he learned in September, 1774, of the fate which the duti- 
ful petition, much of v/hich was composed by himself, had met 
at the hands of the King. 

The journey from Monticello to Philadelphia required more 
than a week's traveling. The road lay largely through the 
wilderness. Jefferson made his long trips back and forth as 
public or private duties summoned him. He was at home in 
March when his mother died. On the following June he was 
in Philadelphia, preparing the Declaration of Independence. 

It was well that Massachusetts had sent her bold, resolute, 
patriotic delegate from Braintree to the Continental Congress. 
There were men among the members who, even after the evac- 
uation of Boston by the British, flinched at the prospect of 
irrevocable separation from the mother-country. A Declara- 
tion of Independence must mean that. It must involve, too. 



Thoims Jefferson. 75 



a long and unequal struggle, at best, with the most powerful 
enemy in the world. It is not strange that brave men's hearts 
failed them sometimes, when they contrasted the might of 
England with the weakness of America. 

John Adams took upon himself the great task of carrying 
the Declaration through Congress. It required his immutable 
conviction, his absolute devotion to his country, and his su- 
preme fearlessness, to spring into the breach. At this great 
crisis the Virginia and the Massachusetts barristers worked in 
perfect harmony. In a speech of masterly argument, of sol- 
emn, passionate fervor, that carried him and his hearers out 
of themselves, John Adams pleaded the cause of the Declara- 
tion before his colleagues. 

No other man could have done this with such effective- 
ness. The speech and the hour were perhaps the greatest of 
the speaker's life. When he ceased, the end vvas achieved. 

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was 
signed by all the delegates. Henceforth there could be no 
drawing back. " The Declaration of Independence is prob- 
ably," says a high authority, *' the most famous state-paper in 
the world. It is the charter of human freedom. It was 
greeted with shouts, bonfires and processions." 

Jefferson was now in the full tide of public life. Honors 
and responsibihties were rapidly heaped upon him. In the 
autumn following the Declaration of Independence he was 
appointed by Congress to represent, with Dr. Franklin and Silas 
Deane, the United States at Paris. The offer was a dazzling 
one to a young man of thirty-three. Jefferson felt all its allure- 
ments. With his alert intelligence, his keen observation, his 
deHght in congenial companionship, Paris, two decades before 
the French Revolution, would have been a most fascinating 
place for him. But Mrs. Jefferson's health made it impossible 
for her to accompany her husband. He would not leave her 



76 Our Presidents. 



behind for all that Europe could offer hun. He declined the 
mission. 

There was plenty of work for him to do at home. Vast as 
that work was, large as the place it should hold in the life of 
Thomas Jefferson, only a few lines can be devoted to it here. 

He was again elected to the Assembly. He was placed on 
a variety of committees. The law-books of Virginia bristled 
with all sorts of mediaeval traditions, with iron rigors and cruel 
punishments. Jefferson was bent, heart and soul, on making a 
sweeping reform in the ancient, tyrannous legislation. 

This reform embraced the " repeal of the laws of entail ; 
the abolition of primogeniture ; the bill for establishing religious 
freedom." 

" These measures proposed nothing less than an overthrow 
of the very foundations of the old social edifice. The reforms 
struck at the most cherished convictions in politics and religion. 
The contest was prolonged for years. Both sides fought with 
the desperation of men who were struggling for the dearest 
prizes of human existence. It was the old struggling mortally 
with the new." 

The party of reform was full of boldness, resolution and 
passionate enthusiasm. Jefferson's old friend, Patrick Henry, 
was now Governor of the newly organized State. Of course his 
sympathies were wholly with the liberal side. But Jefferson 
was leader in the great work of reform. He had energetic col- 
leagues, however, in George Wyeth and James Madison — the 
latter a young man of twenty-five, who, " small of stature, and 
wasted by too much study," had just entered the Assembly. 

The first blow was struck at the system of entail. That 
old abuse fell after a struggle of three weeks. It was an easy 
triumph for Jefferson, compared with the fierce battles that 
followed. The old oppressive religious statutes yielded slowly, 
one after another, to his vigorous onslaughts. It took, as has 



Thomas Jefferson. 77 



been said, many years to achieve a thorough reform, but he 
succeeded in carrying a repeal of some of the harshest penalties. 
It was not until 1786 that Jefferson's " Act for Establishing 
Religious Freedom " became the law of Virginia. 

The reader must look elsewhere for the details of this great 
work. Suffice it that Jefferson inspired the legislation of Vir- 
ginia with the new modern spirit of justice, generosity, human- 
ity. Many an old abuse, many a cruel enactment, died hard. 
The instincts, the traditions, the passions of caste, were alive 
and powerful in the Assembly. Jefferson made many and bitter 
foes. Every man does whose great aim is to serve his race. 

Jefferson gave the best of two years to revising the laws of 
Virginia. 

Meanwhile the war of the Revolution went its long way. 
The young nation passed through all the dark days which fol- 
lowed the evacuation of Boston. In due time came the sur- 
render of Burgoyne, and the war was brought under the very 
eyes of Monticello, when four thousand English and German 
prisoners of war were marched and quartered close to Charlotte- 
ville by order of Congress. 

It was in keeping with Jefferson's character to do all in his 
power to alleviate the tedium and discomfort of the war-prison- 
ers in the very shadow of his home. He extended many cour- 
tesies to his foes, and made many friends among them. 

On June i, 1779, Thomas Jefferson became Governor of 
Virginia. It was a position full of responsibility and difficulty 
at that time. The flower of Virginia was, of course, in camp 
with Washington. The weak and scattered militia could do 
little to protect a State whose unguarded coasts and numerous 
rivers offered such temptations to sudden incursions of the 
foe. Three weeks before Jefferson's inauguration a fleet of 
two thousand troops had landed, plundered, ravaged, burned 
and murdered, without encountering any obstacle. There was 



/S Our Presidents. 



niach apprehension, too, about the Indians. Worst of all, Vir- 
ginia was impoverished. Her militia lacked everything neces- 
sary for defense. The former Governor, Patrick Henry, had 
hurried off all the home-supplies to General Gates, in North 
Carolina. The latter w^as all that stood between Cornwallis and 
the firesides of Virginia. 

Nobody has ever claimed that Thomas Jefferson possessed 
the military genius. He worked, however, with untiring energy 
and devotion at this period. If he poured all the resources of 
the State into Gates's hands, he did what seemed to him wisest 
and best at this critical juncture. 

If, when Virginia's hour of trial came, she would have fared 
better with a *' war- Governor " at the helm, she had not placed 
him there. 

When the great fleet of sixty vessels entered Hampton 
Roads and lay there, waiting to co-operate with Cornwallis in 
laying waste Virginia, Jefferson's hands were tied. He could 
not, like Cadmus, raise armies from the soil ; he could not fur- 
nish supplies when they were not to be found. 

Happily the North Carolina militia held Cornwallis at bay, 
and, after a month's waiting, the fleet disappeared from Hamp- 
ton Roads. 

But the British commanders in the South were resolved, if 
they did not make Virginia soil their battle-field, to ravage and 
despoil the ancient Province. 

Certainly Jefferson had hard lines from the beginning. If 
he was not a born soldier he was a man full of energy, resource 
and determination. He faced the situation with coolness and 
courage. Yet it was one to appall the stoutest heart. There 
was no force but a half-armed, scantily-clothed body of militia 
to resist the march of Cornwallis into Virginia or the hostile 
fleets upon her coast. It was a time that tried men's souls, and 
the Governor had to bear the brunt of things. 



Tbonias Jefferson. 79 



What Jefferson had to do — what Virginia had to endure — 
as she lay prostrate, with her coast and her interior open to her 
])0werful and wrathful foe during the last years of the Revolu- 
tionary War, would fill a volume. There was no peace for the 
inhabitants. One invasion was followed by another. The air 
was full of alarm and terror. 

Sunday, the last day of the year 1780, was perhaps the dark- 
est day of all those dark days. On that morning a fleet of 
twenty-seven sail rode in Chesapeake Bay. Benedict Arnold 
was in command. Wherever he went, he would be likely to 
make short, stern work with the country he had betrayed. At 
that time Jefferson was alone. He hurried his family to a 
place of safety thirteen miles distant. Then he spurred his 
horse toward Richmond, the new capital, until the animal broke 
down. " The Governor of Virginia was compelled to borrow 
an unbroken colt." When at last he reached Richmond, he 
found the foe there before him. 

Arnold remained at the capital twenty-three hours. One 
suspects that, brave as he was, he must, after his treason, always 
have felt uneasy when he was outside British lines. Jefferson's 
prompt action had roused the militia on every side, and breath- 
ing vengeance, they marched on Arnold's track. 

But he got back safely to his fleet and fell down the James, 
having to content himself with the havoc he had made at the 
capital. 

Four times in the spring of 1781 the Virginia Legislature 
fled on the alarm or approach of the British. 

The following month Jefferson's hour of trial came. The 
redoubtable Tarleton, " with a body of cavalry two hundred 
and fifty strong," galloped near midnight into Louisa, a town 
twenty miles from Monticello. Before the next sunrise a rider 
spurred a horse white with foam up the mountain. He brought 
tidings of the approach of the foe. 



8o Our Presidents. 



The Legislature — what there was of it — was at Charlottes- 
ville. There was no doubt Tarleton was bent on capturing that 
and the Governor. 

Jefferson confronted the peril coolly. The family had time 
to breakfast before they left Monticello to take refuge with a 
friend. Jefferson secured his most valued papers, mounted his 
horse, and rode off in the pleasant June morning. 

There was no thunder of hoofs in the still air. He rode 
to a point where he could look down on Charlottesville. It 
lay peaceful in the morning sunshine. Jefferson had been 
hurried away from his precious papers by a militia officer who 
had rushed in breathless with the tidings that troops were 
ascending the mountain. 

Jefferson now suspected this was a false alarm, and rashly 
concluded to return for his papers. As he rode back he dis- 
covered that his sword was missing. It had fallen from its 
scabbard. He turned to search for it, and once more glanced 
off at the little village of Charlottesville. It was swarming with 
cavalry ! That lost sword had saved him from capture. Five 
minutes after he left his house Tarleton's men were inside it. 

But before that year had closed the long travail of Virginia 
was over. A little more than five months after that morning 
flight from Monticello, Cornwallis had surrendered at York- 
town. 

Jefferson returned to his beloved Monticello, at the close of 
the war, believing that his public life was over. About the 
same time another Virginian was returning to his home at Mount 
Vernon, cherishing the same happy illusion for himself. Each 
had, after long stormy years, a season of delightful repose and 
peace in the midst of his family. 

But the younger of the two men had the briefer hour of 
gladness. The sixth child was born to the Jefferson household. 
From that time the fragile mother's health failed steadily. For 



Thomas Jefferson. 8i 



months the sinking of that beloved life held her husband in 
agonizing suspense. 

September 6, 1782, was the darkest morning that ever rose 
over Monticello. Everybody knew then that its mistress would 
not see the sunset. 

The husband's grief was as deep as his love had been loyal. 
When it came to the last parting, the strong mind, the vigorous 
frame, were utterly prostrated for a while. There were even 
fears for Jefferson's reason or his life. He had a capacity for 
tenderness that was like a woman's. 

The dying wife, thinking in her last hour of the daughters 
she must leave motherless, laid her cold hand in her husband's, 
and begged him to promise her he would never marry again. 

In that hour of supreme anguish it was easy to give his word. 
He never broke it. 

Time, of course, dulled the keenness of his grief. Though 
he must miss all the rest of his days the dearest companionship, 
a man like this — his brain, his heart, his time — belonged to 
humanity. When the first sense of loneliness and loss was 
softened, his country made her voice heard again. Thomas 
Jefferson was once more elected to Congress. He took his seat 
November, 1783. 

But a greater honor and a larger sphere of action were 
awaiting him. In the following May Congress resolved to send 
another envoy to France. Thomas Jefferson was appointed to 
the new post. He was to occupy it for two years. His salary 
was to be nine thousand dollars a year. 

Everything must have inclined him to accept the new ap- 
pointment. There was, alas ! no wife whose happiness must be 
consulted now. There was every reason to believe he could 
serve his country in the new office. All his splendid faculties 
must have inspired him to throw himself at this time into the 
thick of affairs. 
6 



82 Our Presidents. 



He left his two daughters in the best care at Monticello ; he 
could not trust himself to return and take leave of them in the 
home so full of tender and harrowing associations. He gave 
his nephews — the sons of Dabney Carr — to the charge of his 
dear young friend, James Madison ; he sailed from Boston in 
the Ceres on July 5, 1783 ; he took with him Martha, his eldest 
daughter. 

The summer passage was smooth and swift. In less than 
five weeks after Jefferson had looked his last on the crooked 
streets and gable roofs of Boston he was safely installed at his 
hotel in Paris. 

The first sight of that splendid city must have made an im- 
mense impression on one who had never seen anything but the 
small towns of the new world. 

Jefferson had entered now upon a period which forms, in 
many respects, the most interesting, varied and remarkable of 
his life. It is an epoch especially tempting to the biographer. 
Yet only the briefest space can be spared here to the five years 
which he passed in France, and which, no doubt, exercised a 
powerful and permanent influence on his opinions and char- 
acter. 

He had set foot in France at the most critical period of her 
history. The most stupendous event of modern times was now 
about to transpire, and though nobody suspected this — though 
that splendid court moved gay and careless down the years to 
the great abyss — there must have been some vague feeling of 
restlessness and excitement in the atmosphere. 

In 1783 Americans were sure of a cordial reception in 
France. Had she not a little before sent her armies and navies 
and emptied her coffers to aid the Colonies in their long 
struggle against her ancient foe ? The name of America was 
dear to the French heart at that time. The Declaration of In- 
dependence had thrilled the people as no human document had 



Thomas Jefferson. 83 



ever thrilled them. The French army and navy officers had 
had many serious thoughts, gained many new ideas, during their 
service in America. The air was full of hope, dreams, enthusi- 
asms. The glow of a fairer, nobler day seemed to men's eyes 
to be already flushing the horizon. 

Jefferson was to succeed Dr. Franklin, and had an oppor- 
tunity of witnessing the unbounded popularity of the American 
statesman and philosopher. The presence and character of the 
simple, white-haired old man had profoundly affected the sen- 
sitive imagination of the French people. Jefferson replied hap- 
pily to the Count de Vergennes, " You succeed Dr. Franklin." 
" I succeed. No one can replace him. " 

But despite all that was novel, interesting and delightful in 
that new life of Paris, it had its drawbacks. Jefferson could 
not speak French, and at his age it is not easy to learn a new 
language. Then his salary was inadequate, as his position of 
foreign minister involved large expenses. The climate did not 
suit one accustomed to a clearer, warmer atmosphere. Jeffer- 
son's heart, in this far-off land, still grieved for its dead. 

But he saw all that was most brilliant, distinguished and 
charming in French society. The most illustrious people met 
under the American's roof. Despite his broken French, they 
liked him immensely. Every American was interesting at that 
time to Frenchmen, especially one who was cultured, a lover of 
science and a philosopher. 

But much as Jefferson's tastes were gratified by the grace 
and elegance of French manners, his clear, penetrating glance 
was not deceived. That pierced beyond all the glory and 
beauty of art around him, beyond the splendor and luxury 
of life, to the heart of things. That saw clearly the unutter- 
able misery, ignorance and oppression of the people. These 
aroused in him a feeling of intense pity, indignation, horror. 
His letters show the strength of his feelings. He believes that 



84 Our Presidents. 



of the twenty millions in France, "nineteen millions are more 
wretched, more accursed in every circumstance of human exist- 
ence, than the most conspicuously wretched individual of the 
whole United States." 

Despite his own agreeable surroundings, Jefferson was 
under no illusions. His residence in France only strengthened, 
if possible, his loyalty to America. 

He did his best for her interests during these five years. 
He worked with untiring industry to secure a more generous 
commercial treaty between the two nations. But old interests, 
traditions, abuses, all stood in his way. Outside of his official 
duties he labored unceasingly for his country. He wanted 
to introduce every valuable product and implement of the Old 
World to the New. With his passion for agriculture, he was 
always sending home " seed-grass, plants, roots, acorns" — any- 
thing novel in the vegetable world which he fancied might 
flourish in his native soil. 

He was eager also to introduce American productions in 
Europe ; and was untiring in obtaining specimens of the 
Fauna and Flora of his ovvni country for propagation in 
France. 

Jefferson had not been two years abroad when he went 
over to London to join Mr. Adams, who was having a hard 
time in " negotiating commercial ti-eaties." 

At this period the social atmosphere of England was any- 
thing but agreeable to Americans. George III. naturally did 
not delight in their presence at his court. Jefferson's recep- 
tion was hardly civil. He did not enjoy England or the En- 
glish people. In the way of treaties he could accomplish 
nothing. Prejudice, commercial selfishness, and a bitter 
grudge against anything American, all combined to create the 
most rigorous monopolies. It was evident that English states- 
men and English merchants meant to crush the manufactures 



Thomas Jefferson. 85 



and ruin the carrying-trade of the young nation across the 
sea. 

Now the Colonies had cliosen to set up for themselves, 
they should have no chance of which England could deprive 
them. This was the temper which Adams and Jefferson had 
to encounter at court, in Parliament, and on the English 
Bourse of that day. 

The two traveled over the island together. They visited its 
famous historic places. What talk they must have had — the 
two colleagues of the old Philadelphia Congress days — as they 
stood on British soil ! 

In about two months Jefferson was back in Paris. Here he 
was in congenial air. The most famous Frenchmen assembled 
at the board of the Monticello planter. Here they discussed 
great political problems, the signs of the times, the promise of 
the future. 

For there was a new thrill and agitation in the air. People 
were talking about human rights, about individual freedom, 
about the dawn of a better and happier era, in a strain that had 
never been heard before. Long afterward Jefferson, in his 
quiet home at Monticello, must have recalled that illustrious 
company which, during these years, passed over his threshold, 
and remembered with a pang how many of these had perished 
by the guillotine. 

His official position made the utmost caution necessary in 
giving expression to his feelings or convictions. But as time 
went on, his heart and soul must have been fired by the great 
events transpiring about him. 

All that can be said here is that Jefferson witnessed the 
opening acts of the drama which was to convulse the world. 
What a glorious time it must have been to his sanguine temper ! 
He never got over the hope, joy and intoxication of those days. 
All the terrible ones that followed never shook his faith in the 



86 Our Presidents. 



promise and the purpose with which the French Revolution had 
opened under his eyes. 

Jefferson was present at the assembly of the notables in 
1787. He witnessed the destruction of the Bastile in 1789. 

Lafayette, and the leaders in all these great national events, 
were Jefferson's intimate friends. They came to him constantly 
for sympathy and counsel. But all his passion for freedom did 
not confuse his judgment. He felt that the French people 
were not ripe for the large freedom his own nation had secured. 
He constantly admonished his friends not to move too fast, to 
beware of extreme measures, to adapt their policy to the condi- 
tions and habits of a people unaccustomed to liberty. 

It seemed a cruel fate that Jefferson should feel it necessary 
to leave France at this juncture. The engagement of his eld- 
est daughter to her cousin, Thomas Mann Randolph, who had 
visited his relatives in Paris, was the cause of Jefferson's return 
to America. This may have saved his neck from the guillo- 
tine, a fate to which, a little later, many of his guests were 
doomed. 

Jefferson was the tenderest of fathers to his two motherless 
girls. The third one, Lucy, had died at two years, soon after 
her father went abroad. Mary, a fragile but singularly inter- 
esting and lovable child, had joined her father and sister in 
Paris. Martha had bloomed by this time into lovely young 
womanhood. Her father approved of her engagement, but he 
would not permit her to make the long journey home without 
him. He obtained leave of absence for six months ; he confi- 
dently looked forward to his return at the end of that time. 

But when he and his daughters sailed from Cowes, he had 
set foot for the last time on a foreign shore. 

Almost the first news that greeted Thomas Jefferson on his 
return home, was that George Washington, then newly elected 
President, had appointed him Secretary of State. It was a most 



Thomas Jefferson. 87 



unwelcome honor. Jefferson at once resolved to decline it, but 
Washington had set his heart on the matter. He himself was in 
an untried place ; he wanted the strongest brains, the wisest 
statesmanship, the noblest talent of the country about him, in 
the new experiment of a Republican Government. At last, and 
with much secret reluctance, Jefferson accepted the position. 
A week after his daughter's marriage, which was celebrated at 
Monticello in the gay old Virginia fashion, he repaired to Gen- 
eral Washington, who was at the seat of government in New 
York. 

It was an immense change from the life in Paris. No doubt 
Jefferson found his high position anything but agreeable at the 
beginning. He had come from a social atmosphere full of the 
passionate hope and joy of the opening French Revolution. It 
was one which peculiarly suited his temperament, tastes and 
convictions. He seemed now to have entered another air, 
where he missed the old sympathetic comradeship. 

Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. In 
that post he was to render the nation, at the dawn of its exist- 
ence, incalculable services. The country, which had barely 
held together in the loose bond of her Confederacy, was on the 
eve of bankruptcy. " It was Hamilton's splendid genius which 
effected a miracle almost as great as that of the harp of Orpheus. 
He restored the credit and developed the resources of the 
countiy. He inspired its moneyed men with faith in his large, 
original, financial measures." He had a brilliant, dominant, cap- 
tivating personality. His position, and Jefferson's in the cab- 
inet involved, of course, close political and social relations. 

Every student of American history is familiar with the bitter 
feud between these great men. It must be read elsewhere. Each 
aimed to serve his country with disinterested patriotism. But 
the character and convictions of each were utterly opposed to 
the other. Alexander Hamilton was by instinct and training 



88 Our Presidents. 



an aristocrat. He had a great liking for England ; he sought, 
so far as possible, to mold the new Government, in its political 
and social forms, after the ancient model. Thomas Jefferson, 
despite his Randolph blood and traditions, was a born Demo- 
crat. He believed in the common people ; he trusted them ; he 
desired that, so far as possible, all political power should be left 
in their hands ; he was suspicious of a strong Central Govern- 
ment. Any measure that bore the slightest tinge of aristocracy 
or monarchy at once aroused his alarm. 

No doubt Jefferson's passionate Republicanism had been in- 
tensified by the scenes and the atmosphere he had left behind 
him. 

With characters and sentiments so radically different, the 
Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury could not 
long maintain their first harmonious relations. In a little while 
the gulf had opened between them. It could not fail to grow 
Avider and deeper. 

Hamilton's career at this time forms one of the most brilliant 
chapters in American history. He was master of men and of 
measures. He largely created and controlled that great Federal 
party to which the nation owed its existence, and which in- 
cluded a majority of its men of culture, character and weight. 

Meanwhile the French Revolution went on its terrible way. 
America had at first hailed her old ally with joy, as one ancient 
abuse fell after another. But at last tidings came across the sea 
that appalled the hearers. 

Strange as it may appear now, there were in the United 
States, less than a hundred years ago, two parties, whose sharp 
dividing line was formed by their French or English sympathies. 
It need not be said that Jefferson belonged to one party, Ham- 
ilton to the other. 

The statesmen kept up a show of civilities long after they 
felt the strongest mutual antipathy. Each attributed the worst 



Thomas Jefferson. 8g 



motives to the other. Jefferson honestly believed that Hamil- 
ton's " schemes " would work irreparable mischief to the coun- 
try. He could not do justice to his colleague's splendid finan- 
cial genius. 

The latter, on his part, had no confidence in the impractica- 
ble theories of Washington's Secretary of State. 

Jefferson, disgusted and exasperated, and finding his urban- 
ity and philosophy taxed beyond endurance by the imperious 
Secretary of the Treasury, resolved to resign his place at the 
close of Washington's first term. But the President was strongly 
opposed to his leaving. He therefore consented to remain 
awhile. Jefferson was no doubt sufficiently unhappy at this 
period. An atmosphere of controversy was repugnant to him. 
He saw his great rival, his unscrupulous political enemy, as he 
regarded Hamilton, carrying, with his masterly tactics, measure 
after measure which he heartily disapproved : he longed pas- 
sionately for the old farm life, the freedom and quiet of Mon- 
ticello. 

Meanwhile the Republic of France sent its first minister to 
the Republic of the United States. Genet came to America. 

There is only space here for a glance at this important epi- 
sode. The new envoy, fresh from the fiery atmosphere of French 
politics, had one supreme object in his mission. He fancied it 
would be an easy one, though it was no less than to embroil 
America with England. 

Young, rash, headstrong, he set about his work. He found 
many sympathizers, and succeeded in arousing the passions and 
prejudices of the people. The friends of France were his ardent 
supporters, and Genet gave Washington infinite anxiety and 
trouble. 

Despite Jefferson's French predilections, he now rallied 
stanchly to the President's side, and thoroughly sustained his 
policy. 



90 Onr Presidents. 



The storm at last blew over. Genet's proceedings were dis- 
avowed by his government. 

The President's entreaties no longer availed to keep Jeffer- 
son in the cabinet. The first Secretary of State resigned his 
office January i, 1794. 

He resumed the old happy life at Monticello, just as Wash- 
ington did a little later at Mount Vernon. Both estates had 
suffered greatly during the long absence of their owners. 

Jefferson's taste for landscape-gardening and architecture 
had been cultivated by his long residence abroad, and he now 
set himself about the congenial work of improving and beautify- 
ing his domain. 

The two years and a half he now spent at Monticello 
formed a happy, pastoral interlude in the life of Thomas Jeffer- 
son. It was full of home-peace and content, of agricultural 
interests and experiments, that absorbed him for many hours of 
each day, while he also found time for the reading and study 
which were so keen a delight to him. 

Monticello always had much company. Guests from all 
lands crossed the threshold of that mountain-home to talk with 
the illustrious owner, and to gaze upon the panorama which 
spread its varied loveliness from the portico to the far Atlantic. 

In the heart of this quiet and content, Jefferson congratu- 
lated himself that he had left the world, with its struggles, its 
rivalries and its passions, forever behind him. He had been 
out in the thick of the storms since his young manhood. Their 
fierceness had wearied him. The philosopher, the statesman, 
the man of large ideals and hopes, was necessarily fond of quiet 
and contemplation. The noise and heat of combat, the lists 
where men fought for the v/orld's great prizes, were not a con- 
genial arena for the genius of Thomas Jefferson. 

But the nation could not leave him alone to experiment with 
his crops, and delight his soul with architecture, and read his 



Thomas Jefferson. 91 



books, and talk his wonderful talk in the pleasant evenings with 
his guests at Monticello. She had forced her great Soldier 
from his beloved retirement at Mount Vernon, and kept him at 
the helm, where he had stood patient, harassed, and homesick 
for eight years ; and now she made her call heeded at Monti- 
cello. In 1796, Thomas Jefferson was elected Vice-President 
of the United States. 

" It is the only office in the world about which I am unable 
to decide in my own mind whether I had rather have it or not 
have it," he wrote to James Madison. Indeed, the political 
atmosphere was such at this crisis, that there were plenty of 
reasons why a man of Jefferson's temperament should dread to 
enter it again. However, he accepted the appointment, and in 
due time went to the inauguration of John Adams at Philadel- 
phia. " It a curious and characteristic fact that he carried 
with him the bones of an enormous mastodon, to display to the 
amazed eyes of the savans at Philadelphia. He had just been 
made President of the Philosophical Society." 

The next four years formed a stormy period for the coun- 
try, for the President and the Vice-President. Here again 
French affairs were complicated with American politics ; here 
again Jefferson was brought into deadly antagonism with his 
powerful and gifted enemy, Hamilton. 

It was impossible that " the man of ideas and the man of 
action " should do each other justice. It is probable that Ham- 
ilton's brilliant, dominant personality eclipsed Jefferson's calm, 
self-controlled one. It was a pity that each could not appreci- 
ate the greatness and fine qualities of his rival. Their personal 
antipathy was naturally augmented by their different political 
opinions and aims. Each followed the bias of his temperament. 
Jefferson was, as we have seen, ardently attached to France. 
Even the tragedies of the Revolution had not shaken his faith 
in the principles which underlay it. He still held the monarchy 



92 Our Presidents. 



and the nobles, the long ages of oppression and class-rule, re- 
sponsible for all the excesses of that great upheaval. 

Hamilton's affiliations, on the contrary, were all with Eng- 
land. He was a warm admirer of the English Constitution, and 
desired that the United States should — as we have seen — 
follow on the ancient lines. He too, like Jefferson, was a 
born leader of men. Each loved his country ; each earnestly 
desired to serve her ; each too, blinded no doubt by personal 
antipathy, believed the other was bent on a policy that would 
work national harm or ruin. 

John Adams, the President, did his utmost for a time to 
relax the country's strained relations with France. But fate 
was against him. The embassy which he sent to the French 
Government proved worse than a failure. War appeared in- 
evitable between the two countries, the old allies. Washing- 
ton even, with all his affection for Lafayette, with all his mem- 
ories of the time in which France, when his need was sorest, 
had come to his rescue, believed the danger so menacing, that 
he prepared, as a soldier must, to meet it. He left Mount Ver- 
non to organize the new army of which he was to be Comman- 
der-in-Chief. Happily the temper and situation of France, the 
wisdom, courage and patriotism of the President, averted the 
danger. John Adams saved his country a war with France, and 
this noble deed cost him his second term of Presidency. 

The nineteenth century opened on a stormy scene in Amer- 
ica. How dead those old issues seem now ! How vital and 
burning they were at the time ! The bitter quarrel between 
Adams and Hamilton had demoralized the great Federalist 
party to which the country owed its existence, its financial 
strength, its growing honor and power among the nations. 

Over this familiar tract in American history the writer can 
only glance. This was the era of the birth of the Republican 
party. It grew rapidly in numbers, strength and influence. 



Thomas Jefferson. 93 



The Federalists had been called the " party of the gentle- 
men," a distinction which, in a political campaign, would 
not be used to their advantage. The Republicans, on the 
other hand, proudly called themselves " the party of the 
people." 

Thomas Jefferson was its organizer, its leader, its ideal. In 
1 80 1 it made him third President of the United States. 

His entrance upon office formed an era of great changes in 
the Administration. The inaugurals of our first two Presidents 
were full of stately ceremonials and elaborate etiquette, more 
or less suggestive of the pomps and pageantry of European 
courts. Everybody knows how Jefferson, true to his Dem- 
ocratic convictions, abolished all these. The third President 
of the United States rode into Washington on March 4, 1801, 
without guard or servant, dismounted, and hitched the horse's 
bridle to the fence with his own hands. 

Yet in that old morning of the dawning century, America 
was going wild with joy over the inauguration of this tall, 
plainly dressed, unattended man. His hair was getting gray, 
and he was fifty-eight years old, when he went up in that quiet, 
simple fashion to take the highest place and the heaviest respon- 
sibility in the Nation. 

From that time, so far as possible, all stately ceremonials and 
etiquette were swept away as by a magician's wand. There 
were no more splendid levees, no more stately and burdensome 
receptions. Everything was plain, quiet, simple, as Jefferson 
thought alone befitted the home and habits of the President of 
a Republic. His proudest ambition was to be a " plain Amer- 
ican citizen." 

It is always difficult, if not impossible, to keep the golden 
mean. When Jefferson resolved to put his fervid democracy 
into daily practice, he may sometimes have carried it to un- 
reasonable lengths, as he did when he received the amazed and 



94 Our Presidents. 



indignant British minister " in a shabby coat and with slippers 
down at the heels." 

But Jefferson felt strongly that an example was needed, and 
if, on occasion, he went too far, he did not err on the wrong 
side. 

It should never be forgotten, too, that he resolved never to 
appoint one of his own relatives to office. With his generous 
nature and his large family connection, this was a lofty and try- 
ing position to take ; but he held to it unflinchingly. Here he 
must speak for himself : " The public will never be made to 
believe that an appointment of a relative is made on the ground 
of merit alone, uninfluenced by family views ; nor can they ever 
see with approbation, offices, the disposal of which they intrust 
to their Presidents for public purposes, divided out as family 
property." 

Washington and Adams had held the same views, although 
the former authoritatively interfered, when the rigid observance 
of this rule would have deprived the country of the immense 
services of John Quincy Adams during his father's administra- 
tion. 

Jefferson's first term of office was happy, peaceful and pros- 
perous for his country. The purchase of Louisiana was the 
most remarkable public event of this period. The vast transfer 
of real estate, which gave to the Am.erican Government control 
of the mouths of the Mississippi, was achieved by Jefferson with 
masterly adroitness and statesmanship. The hour was in his 
favor. The French treasury was impoverished, and Napoleon 
Bonaparte, first Consul of France, resolved on breaking the 
Peace of Amiens, was sorely in need of money before he could 
again let loose the " dogs of war." He virtually admitted that 
the sale of the vast " Terra Incognita " of the West cost him a 
pang. But Louisiana lay far out of the track of his conquests, 
and he believed that England would speedily make a descent on 



Thomas Jejjerson. 95 



the Gulf coast if he did not close with the offer of sixty millions 
for the French territory. James Monroe had appeared on the 
ground in the nick of time. He had the President's full con- 
fidence and the great sale was promptly concluded. 

It seems incredible that a purchase of such unspeakable 
value to the American Republic should have met with outcry 
and denunciation at home, but it is none the less true that the 
l)arty opposed to Jefferson fiercely decried the bargain with 
Napoleon. 

Another of Jefferson's important measures at this period of 
his Administration was the bold course which he adopted toward 
the Algerine pirates. " It was the beginning of a series of acts 
which ended in sweeping the pirates from the Mediterranean." 

The trial of Aaron Burr, the English outrages on American 
shipping in American waters, the miseries of the embargo, 
belong to Jefferson's second term. They made the Presidential 
pillow one of thorns. Mr. Jefferson was a lover of peace ; he 
did his utmost to maintain it. The whole country, aflame over 
the long chapter of outrages on its shipping and seamen, thought 
forbearance had ceased to be a virtue. All Jefferson's old 
enemies would have enthusiastically supported him had he 
declared war with England. 

" I have only to open my hand," he wrote, '' and let havoc 
loose." 

But he did not flinch. The embargo which he preferred to 
war proved, in its workings, a very inadequate measure. It 
certainly prostrated the commerce of the country for the time, 
and it did not accomplish what Jefferson had fondly hoped. 

His first Presidential term had expired in the midst of honor 
and glory. The closing months of the second were clouded by 
public anxieties and private embarrassments. Jefferson longed 
for relief from the cares and responsibilities of the high-post with 
the passionate longing of Washington a dozen years before. 



9^ Our Presidents. 



The man who had been too much absorbed in public affairs 
to bestow any attention on private ones, and whose Admin- 
istration was to prove of infinite service to his country, 
discovered an alarming deficit in his personal accounts when, 
shortly before his term closed, he found time to examine them. 

His official income had not supported the large hospitali- 
ties which his position involved. His private resources had 
therefore been heavily taxed to meet all deficiencies. His to- 
bacco revenue had been nearly ruined by the embargo. Jef- 
ferson was horrified on discovering that he "must leave Wash- 
ington seven or eight thousand dollars in debt," unless that 
sum, much larger than at the present time, " could be hurriedly 
raised from his own property." 

This fortunately was accomplished, and Thomas Jefferson 
was perhaps the happiest man in all America when, March 4, 
1809, he resigned the Administration to James Madison. 

He returned to Monticello. He lived there for seventeen 
years. The limits of this sketch exclude much that is interest- 
ing and delightful in this last period of Jefferson's life. Like 
Washington, he spent much time riding over his plantations, 
supervising their management, and making fresh improvements 
on his estate. He retained his large interest in public affairs. 
His conversation must have afforded great dehght to the guests 
who crowded his board and overflowed his house during these 
years. These guests came in a ceaseless stream. They taxed 
his time and devoured his substance. But it would have been 
contrary to all the instincts of his hospitable nature to close his 
doors against them. 

It is a pleasant story — that last decade of his life. One 
likes to linger on it. A grand, patriarchal grace gathered 
about him as he grew old. His sun was setting, but though its 
light shone now for him in the west, it had still much of the 
glow and brightness of his youth. 



Thomas Jejjerson. 97 



He made a profound impression upon the noblemen and 
illustrious foreigners who journeyed to Monticello to look upon 
him and hear his voice. Some of these carried back to Europe 
the declaration that the " Virginia gentleman was the most im- 
portant man of his epoch." 

Jefferson was during the last years of his life, as always, an 
ardent Democrat. His soul swelled with patriotic joy when he 
contrasted the freedom and prosperity of the New World with 
the oppression and misery of the Old. 

" When we get piled upon one another as they do in 
Europe," he said, '* we shall be corrupt as they are in Europe, 
and go to eating one another as they do there." 

" He had had a various, splendid, but on the whole, happy 
career." He was now, as throughout his life, the most indus- 
trious of men. He rose always at dawn. He said in his last 
illness that the sun had not caught him in bed for sixty years. 
He was full of ardent interest in all measures which he 
thought would benefit or elevate mankind. The University of 
Virginia is not merely a monument to his memory. It is a wit- 
ness of his enthusiasm and devotion to the cause of education 
in his native State. 

It was well that Jefferson was fond of children, for the 
house on the mountain-top swarmed v/ith them. Colonel Ran- 
dolph and his wife — the Martha Jefferson of earlier days — lived 
at Monticello. They had eleven children, all of whom were 
brought up under the paternal roof. Mrs. Randolph was a 
woman of rare loveliness of character, and had taken her moth- 
er's place in her father's heart and life. 

The younger sister, Maria, had died at Monticello in 1804. 
This was a cruel blow to her father, and it fell on him just 
as he had reached the acme of his greatness. The young 
wife left one boy to grow up with his cousins under his 
grandfatlier's roof-tree. So there was a world of joyous young 
7 



9^ Our Presidents. 



life about Thomas Jefferson as his head grew white, and 
his shoulders bowed with the weight of the years which he 
carried serene and brave. 

It irked Thomas Jefferson sorely that he was a slave- 
holder, though he appears to have been the mildest, most 
indulgent of masters. But he abhorred the system. Nobody 
ever uttered more solemn protests against slavery than the 
Virginian, who was born, brought up, and spent his life in its 
midst. 

In October, 1824, an event occurred which cannot be 
passed over in this slight sketch of Jefferson's life. This was 
the meeting between him and Lafayette. They had not seen 
each other for thirty-six years. Jefferson had passed his eightieth 
birthday. Lafayette was approaching his seventieth. That 
meeting forms one of America's great historic pictures. The 
surroundings were all worthy the two central figures. A caval- 
cade of county gentlemen had accompanied the carriage in 
which the great Frenchman wound up to the summit of Monti- 
cello. Banners waved and trumpets sounded on the air of the 
soft Virginia October day. The procession formed about the 
lawn. Every breath was held in suppressed excitement, and 
every eye was bent upon the portico as the carriage drew to- 
ward it. What a moment it must have been when a figure, 
"small and alert," the gray hair crowning the strong, keen feat- 
ures we all know so well, descended from the carriage! Then 
the door opened, and Jefferson, with his tall bowed form and 
his white hair, stood upon the portico. When the music ceased, 
the crowd uncovered. In all the vast assemblage there was 
hardly a dry eye. The old men threw themselves into each 
other's arms. What memories must have crowded on the 
thoughts of both in that moment! They had parted just on the 
eve of the French Revolution, when Lafayette's heart was 
bounding high with hope and joy for France. The dawn of 



Thomas Jcjjersoii. 99 



her new day of freedom seemed to him then fair in the skies. 
Did he remember how, a Httle later, the darkness had gath- 
ered over all the glow ? Did he remember that bitter day 
when he spurred his horse over the frontier because they were 
hunting him down for the guillotine ? Did he remember those 
long, terrible five years in the dungeon of Olmiitz ? Did he 
think of the splendor of Bonaparte's day, and of the defeat 
and darkness in which it went down ? Even at that moment 
did Lafayette think with a pang, that the Bourbon had come 
back to what he called " his own," and that France, after her 
terrible struggle, lay once more in the grasp of the ancient des- 
potism ? All this and much more must certainly have been in 
Lafayette's mind as he stood by his old comrade of the Ameri- 
can Revolution. 

And Jefferson must have thought of all this too, and of that 
day in Paris, when Lafayette and the French leaders gathered 
for the last time at his board, and of v/hat his country was then 
— only a handful of impoverished, loosely-bound States, more 
or less the scorn and jest of Europe — and of all she had grown 
to be in those thirty-six years. 

After that visit less than two years more remained of Jeffer- 
son's life. A longer biography would have much to relate of 
these years. Despite the dignity, cheerfulness, serenity, that 
characterized them, they were clouded and harassed by financial 
difficulties. A letter to his eldest grandson, written February 8, 
1826, wrung out of the strong heart's long weariness and anxiety, 
is inexpressibly touching : 

" You kindly encourage me to keep up my spirits ; but oppressed with 
disease, debility, age, and embarrassed affairs, tliis is difficult. ... I 
should not care if life were to end with the line I am writing, were it not 
that in the unhappy state of mind which your father's misfortunes have 
brought upon him, I may yet be of some avail to the family." 

The oak was bending to the storm at last. He who had 



loo Our Presiden/s. 



always dealt in such large generosity with his fellow-men, he 
who had so strong a hatred of debt, felt its burden on his age. 
He was forced to sell his precious library. There was danger 
that he would lose Monticello. When this became widely 
known, individuals rallied to his aid. New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, sent him, through private channels, more than fifteen 
thousand dollars. He who had resolutely refused a loan from 
his native State, was greatly touched by this gift of individuals. 
"No cent," he characteristically said, "is wrung from the tax- 
payer. It is the pure and unsolicited offering of love." 

He read the Bible much in his last days ; he arranged in a 
blank book all the passages which " came directly from the lips 
of the Saviour. " Of this he wrote to a friend : " A more beauti- 
ful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen ; it is a docu- 
ment in proof that I am a real Christian ; that is to say, a 
disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." 

As the summer of 1826 opened it became apparent to all 
that he was gradually failing. Death came to him in its kindly, 
painless guise. The mind was clear, the heart sanguine to the 
last. The old Revolutionary scenes came up vivid and con- 
stant. He remembered with pleasure that the draperies about 
his bed had been brought over in the first ship that crossed the 
ocean after the peace of 1782. 

He made, on his death-bed, a remark full of the noblest 
magnanimity. " His calumniators, he had never thought, were 
assailing him, but a being non-existent, of their own imagining, 
to whom they had given the name of Thomas Jefferson." 

At the last he had but one desire. This was to live until 
the 4th of July. But his exhaustion Avas so great that those who 
watched often feared his sleep would be the sleep of death 
before that day dawned. 

But the strong life did not yield easily, and he still breathed 
when the day broke. He lingered on, slumbering much, occa- 



nomas Jefferson. loi 



sionally speaking a few words, until a little past midday. When 
the sun of that anniversary which owed its existence to their 
joint efforts, had set, the great Virginian and the great New 
Englander had breathed their last. 

More than a quarter of a century before the eldest of our 
first three Presidents had gone to his long sleep. Thomas Jeffer- 
son was the youngest of that great trio. Widely diverse as they 
were in temperament and character, the circumstances and en- 
vironment of the two afford a good many analogies. 

Each was a Virginia planter, or, as each would have preferred 
to call himself, a farmer. Each owned a noble estate — one on 
the Potomac — the other on the Rivanna. The strongest passion 
of each was liberty ; the dearest pursuit of each was agriculture. 
Each was singularly happy in his domestic life. The Martha of 
Mount Vernon, and the Martha of Monticello, each brought her 
husband a large fortune with her hand. Each of these men 
died leaving no son to bear, according to the stuff that was in 
him, the weight of his father's great name. 

Of the first three Presidents Thomas Jefferson had, per- 
haps, the most lovable personaUty. Washington's stateliness 
and dignity inspired profound awe and admiration in all those 
who came into his presence. He stands apart in solitary 
grandeur. Yet this very fact seems to rob him of some merely 
human interest. One is inclined to wonder whether he ever, in 
the course of his sixty-eight years, made a foolish speech, was 
guilty of a wrong or weak action, and was sorry and ashamed 
afterward, like ordinary human beings. 

Thomas Jefferson, with all his noble qualities, had faults, 
prejudices, defects of mind and character. So had that Massa- 
chusetts barrister who, for four years, took his place, between 
the two Virginians, at the head of the nation. Outspoken, 
fiery-tempered, obstinate, he did not always do justice to the 
great qualities of his mind and heart. 



I02 Our Presidents. 



Yet one cannot forget that it was Thomas Jefferson who 
spoke of John Adams words of higher praise than one man, per- 
haps, ever bestowed on another : " He is as disinterested as 
the Being Avho made him." 

No mortal could, of course, merit such a speech. But it 
should be remembered that the man who uttered it had a clear 
insight into faults and weaknesses ; and the praise shines out 
luminous against the background of his keen, severe criticism of 
his rival. 

But for each of these men — whatever their faults and limita- 
tions — it may be said that he loved his country with a perfect 
love. Each would have freely sacrificed his life, his fortune, 
his happiness — everything that he possessed — for her welfare. 
Whenever the test came the patriotism of each always rung 
true. And if George Washington, who never spoke lightly or 
carelessly, solemnly affirmed that it was his supreme desire to 
live and die " an honest man and a farmer," so, in different 
ways, did John Adams ; so did Thomas Jefferson. 

They stand together in the foreground of American history 
— our first three Presidents — an immortal trio. 




l^-^"^"" 



/ /;t^u^^^^ ^y6^ Oc^-^^^^-c^ ^"^ 



JAMES MADISON. 

When the year 1770 dawned, nobody on this planet sus- 
pected that it had opened the most important decade in Amer- 
ican history. In that year there was, in the old Princeton col- 
lege, a young undergraduate from Virginia, who was, perhaps, 
the most zealous and tireless student that ever passed inside 
those venerable walls. What a hopeless bookworm he must 
have seemed to the young America — robust and hearty, lover 
of high sports and rough games — of that ancient time ! No 
doubt his classmates had plenty of fun at his expense. If his 
time came to laugh later, it was never so hearty and thorough- 
going as it might have been had his tutors been wiser and had 
he studied somewhat less. For the Virginia youth of nineteen 
allowed himself only three hours' sleep out of the twenty-four, the 
rest he devoted assiduously to study and recitations ! The name 
of the Princeton undergraduate was James Madison ; he had 
entered college at eighteen ; he came of the old Virginia planter 
class, which, a little later, was to give the country so many of 
its early Presidents and statesmen ; he was born in Montpe- 
lier, in Orange County, in the beautiful, picturesque country of 
the Blue Ridge ; he came of a vigorous breed, physically, mor- 
ally, intellectually ; lie had been nurtured in a refined, gracious, 
hospitable, domestic life — a life smooth, prosperous, happy ; but 
less dramatic, less full of varied experience and picturesque 
events, than one which had its beginnings in more rugged 
ways. 

There is little for the biographer to relate of James Madi- 
son's childhood. The drama was there, of course, the lights 



I04 Our Presidents. 

and the shadows, as they are on all early lives ; but he had too 
fortunate a start to furnish much material for history or tra- 
dition. 

The family-tree struck its roots far back among the earliest 
years of the Province. The Madisons anchored on the Chesa- 
peake shores fifteen years after the settlement of Jamestown. 
They must have become stanch Americans long before their 
most distinguished representative saw the daylight. 

James was the eldest son of his family, a fact which was of 
consequence in the eyes of the old Virginia law ; he had four 
brothers and three sisters ; he was a born student, caring, even 
in his childhood, little for play and the rough games that 
delight healthy, robust boys ; he was naturally shy and thought- 
ful, and had a grave, mature air that must have seemed oddly 
in contrast with his years. 

In those days, when schools were few and poor at best, he 
studied mostly under a private tutor in his own home. Even 
when a boy, he had acquired a good deal of Greek and Latin, of 
French and Spanish. There were probably few fellows as well 
equipped for the college curriculum as that youth of eighteen, 
who went up to Princeton from the foot of the Blue Ridge. 

James Madison graduated in 177 1. He remained awhile, 
however, to study with the president, Dr. Witherspoon. When 
the youth of twenty left Princeton, he carried to his home the 
groundwork of that wise and thorough scholarship which was to 
prove of such immense service to him in the great role he was 
to play before the world ; but he carried also a weakened vital- 
ity ; he had taxed it so heavily that it never afterward recovered 
itself, and it proved his discomfort and limitation all the rest of 
his life. 

The wonder was that those twenty-one hours of study had 
not killed him long before he left Princeton ; but he inherited 
the longevity of his stock. 



James Madison. 1 05 



At home he entered on the study of law, and taught his 
younger brothers and sisters. The small, pale, serious-faced 
youth was at this period much interested in theological studies. 
His fragile health exercised a depressing influence on his 
thoughts and moods. Before his life had really begun he had a 
strong feeling that it was approaching its end. 

While James Madison was busying himself with law and theol- 
ogy, the storm of the Revolution was slowly gathering. All those 
great questions which preceded the War — questions of essential 
liberty, of the rights of freemen, and the relations of the colo- 
nies to the mother-country — must have aroused the eager interest 
of that luminous young mind and of that patriotic heart. 

James Madison entered on his public career in 1776. The 
War of the Revolution was then, as everybody knows, a year 
old. Madison, though young and shy among his distinguished 
seniors, who were engaged in the work of forming a constitution 
for the State, made his mark — less in public debates than in 
private discussions and with his pen. Here his rich stores of 
learning and his calm and logical mind showed to best advan- 
tage. The young member slowly but surely acquired power 
and influence among his peers and with the people. 

The following year he was a candidate for the General 
Assembly. He lost the election, but it was greatly to his honor. 
" He refused to treat the voters with whisky." It required 
much moral courage to do this. Drinking formed a necessary 
corollary of voting in the political habits of that age. But 
Madison had clear convictions on most subjects, and a con- 
science that would not permit him, when the test came, to 
flinch. 

His position commanded great respect among people of 
weight in the province, and he was soon appointed a member of 
the Governor's council. 

During his term of service Patrick Henry and Thomas Jef- 



io6 Our Presidents. 



ferson were Governors of Virginia. Both these men had a high 
regard for young Madison. Jefferson was eight years his senior. 
At this period that strong attachment was formed between the 
two which continued for the rest of their h'ves. Indeed, Jeffer- 
son loved his young friend as few brothers love each other. 
Montpeher was only twenty-five miles from Monticello. At one 
time, not long after the death of his wife, Jefferson's lonely 
heart sought to solace itself with visions of a small, choice 
group of congenial spirits, who should come to reside in his 
vicinity. They were to meet frequently, and enjoy the rarest 
companionship of mind and heart. Madison was to be one of 
that quartette to which Jefferson limited his circle. The great 
philosopher and statesman dwells fondly upon this subject when 
he writes to his friend at Montpelier : 

" Think of it. To render it practicable only requires you to think it so. 
Life is of no value but as it brings us gratifications. Among the most valu- 
able of these is rational society. It informs the mind, sweetens the temper, 
cheers our spirits, and restores health." 

And he goes on to describe a little farm adjoining his own 
land, of a hundred and fifty acres, and a small old house upon 
it, " where the young bachelor could make his first attempt at 
housekeeping." 

The scheme appears as delightful and romantic as it cer- 
tainly was Utopian. Madison regarded Jefferson's society and 
friendship as one of the most valued blessings of his life ; but 
the change from the luxurious Montpelier fireside to the com- 
fortless little farm-house could not have been an inviting pros- 
pect to the semi-invalid bachelor. 

In 1780, Madison was elected to the Continental Congress. 
This was a high honor, and the man who received it was not 
yet thirty years old. He served through three stormy, event- 
ful years. During this period, the War of the Revolution was 
brought to its triumphant close at Yorktown, and the Treaty of 



James Madison. 107 



Peace was at last signed between England, France and Amer- 
ica. Madison was in that old Continental Congress whose 
powers proved so inadequate to the needs of the Nation. It 
must have been a trying school for him, but it was an invalu- 
able one. This was proved a little later when he, more than 
any other man, prepared the way to the Convention which 
framed the Constitution at Philadelphia. 

In 1784 Madison left the National Legislature to enter that 
of his native State. A vast work lay before him. The old 
statutes were to be revised. A new spirit of progress and hu- 
manity was to be infused into the legislation. The old laws 
and usages which embodied much of mediaeval injustice and 
hardness were to be superseded by new and liberal ones. But 
Madison had to fight hard with prejudice and conservatism for 
every inch of the upward way. His great paper, the " Memo- 
rial and Remonstrance," which opposed taxing the people for 
the support of religion, finally carried the divorce of Church 
and State in Virginia. 

Meanwhile the young Nation was going blind, helpless, 
struggling on its untried path. The inefificient Congress, the 
vast public debt bequeathed by the Revolution, the general 
disorder, insecurity and wide-spread impoveri.shment, were fill- 
ing the country with foreboding and despair. 

Madison's patriotic soul was deeply stirred by the condition 
of affairs. He saw the dangers into which the Republic was 
drifting. She would certainly go to pieces unless a stronger 
bond of union took the place of the slight Confederacy which 
barely held the States together. 

The people who had gained their freedom after a struggle 
of seven years with the most powerful monarchy in the world, 
were jealous for their liberties. Behind any attempts to enlarge 
the national authority they beheld the dreaded specter of ap- 
proaching Monarchy. The soldiers of the Revolution, as they 



io8 Our Presidents. 



sat around their firesides or assembled in the ancient taverns to 
talk over their campaigns and discuss their grievances, grimly 
muttered " that they wanted no new king set up in America. 
It had taken seven years and Lexington and Concord, Bunker 
Hill and Yorktown *' to get rid of George Third ! " 

The suggestion of a strong Central Government always 
aroused the suspicions and hostile fears of the veterans who had 
fought the battles of the Revolution. A power set above the 
States, controlling and defying them, at once assumed to their 
imaginations the hated features of Monarchy. 

The talk ran in the old taverns and around the firesides in 
this impassioned strain during the gloomy years which fol- 
lowed the close of the Revolutionary war. Meanwhile the 
country, which had bought its freedom with so great a price, 
and whose existence seemed the dawn of a better era for the 
world, was drawing nearer to that inevitable wreck which its 
enemies had exultantly predicted. 

But one man — a small-framed, pale, thoughtful-faced Vir- 
ginian — had the clear, forecasting vision of a statesman. He 
and a few others like him looked the worst in the face and 
did not despair. He believed that the remedy for all exist- 
ing evils lay in an efficient national government. This alone 
would infuse new life into the paralyzed energies, revive the 
industries, and develop the resources of the Thirteen States. 
In a closer alliance lay their salvation. If they separated, 
formed small confederacies, or entered into foreign alliances, 
the work of the Revolution had been in vain. In a national 
government, invested with authority to act and to compel re- 
spect on its own soil and on that of every nation of the world, 
lay the sole chance for the future of the United States. 

But it was one thing for James Madison to see this, and 
quite another to make the mass of his countrymen. 

The greatest obstacle to the formation of a closer union was 



James Madison. 109 



in the States themselves. Each of the " Thirteen " had her in- 
dividual interests, her pet prejudices, her commercial ambitions 
and jealousies. Each, too, regarded her sisters with more or 
less distrust. In the face of all this, any attempt to secure a 
closer union by sacrifices for the general good must have ap- 
peared almost hopeless. 

But James Madison had a calm, patient, hopeful temper, 
and underneath this glowed the zeal of the true patriot. He 
went at his Herculean task with great common sense and the 
utmost discretion. He had made a long step in advance when 
he carried a measure through the Virginia General Assembly 
which " invited the States to meet at Annapolis and discuss 
measures for the formation of a more efficient Federal Govern- 
ment." 

This measure, instead of alarming the popular mind, appears 
to have been regarded with wide-spread indifference. It was 
certainly the day of small things for James Madison. Only five 
States thought his invitation of sufficient importance to send 
delegates to the Annapolis convention. 

But before these delegates separated, another measure, also 
introduced by Mr. Madison, had urged the States to send their 
delegates to Philadelphia in May, 1787, to draught a Constitu- 
tion for the United States. This was throwing down the gaunt- 
let. It was a frank admission that the old Confederate League 
was a failure. 

Every school-boy has gone over this historic ground. He 
knows how the delegates met in Philadelphia, and how George 
^Vashington presided, and what hard work and fierce contro- 
versies filled that old hot summer of 1787. It was well that 
George Washington, with the halo of the Revolution about him, 
was at the head of the Convention, for the country was wide- 
awake now, and regarding the novel work that was being done 
at Philadelphia with much jealousy and hostility. But when 



I lo Our Presidents. 



the Convention broke up in September the work was done ; the 
Constitution had been formed, and James Madison was hence- 
forth to be called its father. One war had been fought on the 
floor of the Convention, but the tug of a harder was yet to 
come. If the reluctant or hostile States could not be brought 
to accept the Constitution, all the summer's work would be 
lost. 

Madison, Hamilton and Jay now did splendid service for 
their country, in that series of great papers which they con- 
tributed to the Federalist, and which with calm, unanswerable 
logic set the real issues at stake before the people. 

A long, bitter contest, which cannot be dwelt on here, fol- 
lowed between the friends and foes of the Constitution. Many 
patriots regarded it as subverting the liberties of the people — as 
the first fatal step toward monarchy. But the States one after 
another fell into line and ratified. In due time, George Wash- 
ington was, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitu- 
tion, nominated first President of the United States. 

The impressive ceremonies of that first inaugural took place 
in New York, April 30, 1789. The world had never witnessed 
a scene like that. A new hour had struck for humanity. 

James Madison was elected a member of the first New York 
Congress. It met in the old City Hall of New York. 

When Jefferson returned from his famous mission to France, 
and was about, with immense reluctance, to take the post of 
Secretary of State, Washington earnestly desired that Mr. Mad- 
ison, for whom he had a strong liking, should accept the vacant 
mission. But Madison declined this, as he also did the post of 
Secretary of State. 

Alexander Hamilton's time had come now. In a little while 
he was carrying everything before him. He was, with his 
splendid genius for finances, establishing the credit and creating 
the prosperity of the country. At the same he was organizing 



James Madison. 1 1 1 



the great Federal party, which was to control the nation to the 
close of the century. 

Madison had worked harmoniously with his brilliant col- 
league during the critical period when the Constitution was 
formed and sent on its way. But now he drew back, disturbed 
and alarmed at Hamilton's sweeping measures, and at the 
large powers with which he was resolved to invest the new 
Government. 

Madison was a democrat of the Jefferson type, though he 
was by temperament more conservative than his chief. He was 
much attached to France, and cherished grateful remembrances 
of her services to America in the Revolutionary War. 

Hamilton, on the contrary, had strong English preferences 
and affiliations. He believed in conferring on the national 
Government as large powens, and on the States as limited, as 
was consistent with the Constitution. He was the leader and 
inspirer of the Federal party. Madison came to be regarded 
as the head of the Republicans. This brought the former col- 
leagues into political antagonism. An atmosphere of contro- 
versy was, however, extremely distateful to Madison. " In all 
discussions he was the most courteous and conciliatory of polit- 
ical opponents." 

He was thirty-two when a sudden romance illuminated his 
grave, studious days. Catharine Floyd was only half his age 
when her pretty young face, and arch, girlish ways, beguiled the 
student from his books. 

Madison's suit pleased her father, whose name stands among 
the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The two were 
engaged. But a girl of sixteen is not apt to know her own 
mind, and a younger rival appeared on the scene and won the 
heart that was pledged to the grave statesman. The letter 
which contained James Madison's dismissal " was sealed with 
a bit of rye dough." Was that just a girlish freak, or did the 



1 1 2 Our Presidents. 



young woman mean her solemn lover to understand " that 
their cake was dough ? " 

At all events, Madison took his loss much to heart, as was 
likely to be the case with one of his reserved temperament. 
He turned to his friend Jefferson for sympathy, sure it would 
not fail him. 

Did a ghost of " Belinda," one wonders, flit across the phi- 
losopher's page, when he replied, " Firmness of mind and unin- 
termitting occupation will not long leave you in pain." 

This might have seemed rather cold comfort to most lovers, 
but it served with Madison. 

He was forty-three when the love that was to make the 
content and happiness of his life came to him. He met Mrs. 
Dorothy Todd one day, when both were out walking in Philadel- 
phia. The lovely face of the young widow of twenty-two at once 
attracted the lonely student. He soon sought an introduc- 
tion. A little later, Mrs. Todd was writing to an old friend : 
"Thou must come to me. Aaron Burr says that 'the great 
little Madison ' has asked to be brought to see me this 
evening." 

It is interesting to know that she wore on that eventful occa- 
sion " a mulberry-colored satin, with a silk tulle kerchief over her 
neck, and on her head an exquisite dainty little cap, from which 
an occasional uncropped curl would escape." 

The heart of the middle-aged bachelor was taken by storm. 
The course of this second love seems to have run with per- 
fect smoothness. In a little while rumors of the engagement 
reached the presidential mansion in Philadelphia, where Wash- 
ington was wearing out the days amid the burdens and cares of 
his second term of office. 

Mrs. Washington, curious and sympathetic, desired, with the 
privilege of an old friend, to learn the truth from Mrs. Todd 
herself. 



James Madison. 1 1 3 



The young widow, embarrassed and faltering, half denied 
the engagement in words that virtually confirmed it. 

In September, 1794, she left Philadelphia for Harewood, her 
sister's home in Virginia. Here, a little later, the marriage of 
James Madison and Dorothy Todd took place. The wedding 
festivities were very gay, as was the habit of that old time. 

Dolly Madison, as she is known in history, came, like her 
husband, of sterling old English stock which had taken early 
root in the colony. She had been brought up in a home of 
great purity, simplicity and refinement. Her father and mother 
were members of the Society of Friends, and observed its rules 
rigorously. Dolly was a charming creature from her birth. 
The little, sweet-faced Quaker girl was a favorite with every- 
body. Her young life must have had its trials ; for despite all 
the severe simplicity of her home, no fashionable belle's com- 
plexion was ever shielded with more care from every ray of 
sun.shine. It must have tried even her sweet temper to be com- 
pelled to wear " a white linen mask, to have her sun bonnet 
sewed on every morning, and to have the little hands and arms 
thoroughly covered with long gloves before she started for 
school." 

But despite all these drawbacks, Dolly Payne had a happy 
childhood. She was destined always to be very much in love 
with all that was pleasant and kindly in a world that turned its 
bright side on her through her long, eventful life. 

We read of her at nineteen as a "tall, slight girl, with a 
delicately oval face, and well formed, if not perfect features, 
a complexion dazzlingly fair, contrasted with very black hair, 
and blue eyes that gazed at you with much sweetness, beneath 
the modest little Quaker cap." 

John Todd sought to gather this rose of womanhood for 
himself. He was a handsome and promising young lawyer, 
and belonged to the Friends' Society. Dolly did not at first 
8 



I T 4 Our Presidents. 



incline to his suit, but her father did, and that settled the 
matter. 

Dolly married John Todd, and the young pair went to 
live in Philadelphia. They had two children. At the end of 
three happy years, the yellow fever swept through the city, and 
young Todd was one of its victims. Amid generous services 
for others he caught the contagion. His wife was also very 
ill with the fever, and their youngest child died. 

She was very young still, when, on the day of days she 
went to walk, and Madison's eyes first rested on her. It is a 
curious coincidence that our first three Virginia Presidents each 
had an early romance which ended in disappointment, and that 
each afterward married young widows, beautiful, charming, 
wealthy. What is more than all this, they were women of high 
character and true hearts. Each made the supreme happiness 
of her husband's life. Washington — Jefferson — Madison, must 
each sometimes, amid the content and sweetness of his home- 
life, have thought of the earlier love, and blessed his stars that 
the later, better one had come to take its place. 

With the close of Washington's administration in 1797, Mr. 
Madison retired for a time from public life to the peace and 
delight of the home at Montpellier, of which his charming 
young wife was mistress, and where their widowed mothers in 
time joined them. It was a home where the scholar could 
indulge his own tastes and live his own life " to the top of 
his bent." Fortune certainly had dealt kindly by the deli- 
cate student ; he had inherited large wealth ; he had won the 
noble fame of the patriot and statesman ; he had gained the 
heart of one of the sweetest women in the world. Montpellier 
was just the earthly paradise to James Madison that Mount 
Vernon was to Washington — that Monticello was to Thomas 
Jefferson. One of these noble estates lay on the east, the other 
a little to the west of Madison's home. 



Jmnes Madison. 115 



There liad been talk of nominating him to succeed Wash- 
ington in the Presidency. But Madison positively declined to 
enter the lists. He craved the peace and freedom of his own 
hearthstone. 

But it was impossible for one who was so ardent a patriot, 
and who had so much of the statesman's quality, to lose his 
interest in public affairs. During the four years of Adams' 
stormy administration, Madison was keenly alive to all the great 
questions of the hour — questions very largely of foreign policy. 
Madison's deep, but calm, equable nature, must have been pro- 
foundly stirred by the passionate indignation against France 
which shook the country, and, at one time, brought it to the 
verge of war with its ancient ally. 

As a Republican — more and more closely identified with 
that party as time went on — he must have shared Jefferson's 
sentiments and feelings at this critical period. Madison wrote, 
during these years, many papers, luminous, logical, and full of 
masterly reasoning. 

It is not possible to dwell here on the strife and passions 
which filled America as the new century opened. The year 
1 80 1 saw the great triumph of the Republican party. Thomas 
Jefferson was President of the United States ; and very soon 
afterward James Madison was Secretary of State. 

His office made it, of course, necessary to exchange Mont- 
pellier for Washington. In the big, dreary, unsightly capitol, 
which, a few years later, was to excite such intense disgust in 
John Quincy Adams, Madison found his place, and his wife 
found hers. His relations with the new President were par- 
ticularly harmonious and delightful. They shared each other's 
political views ; they cherished toward each other the warmest 
friendship. 

As the President had long been a widower, the duties of 
mistress of the new Wliite House devolved largely upon Mrs. 



• 
1 1 6 Oky Presidents. 



Madison. She filled that position with a charm and ease, 
and with a gracious dignity which won all hearts. That little 
Quaker girl must have been born with a social gift which fitted 
her to shine in courts, and which lent a grace of its own to the 
life that the President, true to his democratic principles, main- 
tained with the utmost simplicity. "Mrs. Madison," it is said, 
"never forgot a name or a face." This was much in a position 
like hers, but her genuine kindness of heart and her thoughtful- 
ness for others, were more. Madison, much engrossed by public 
affairs, left social duties almost entirely to his wife. She had, 
long ago, relinquished the peculiar costume of her childhood, 
but the furnishings of her house were still plain and her dress 
simple. Her social tact and charm had much influence " in 
allaying the bitterness of party rancor, and softening the feelings 
of her husband's political opponents." 

Jefferson's first term of presidency was all prosperity, suc- 
cess, glory. The second term afforded so sharp a contrast that 
one might have fancied the gods had grown jealous. Foreign 
complications — the British Orders in Council — the Berlin and 
Milan Decrees of Napoleon, insulted the Government, crippled 
the commerce of the young nation, and goaded the people to 
the verge of war. Then, worse than all, was the atrocious im- 
pressment of American subjects on board American ships, into 
the British navy. 

The President and his Secretary of State, were by tempera- 
ment and conviction strongly averse to war. This is not the 
place to discuss the wisdom or statesmanship of such measures 
as the non-intercourse act, the embargo, the building of gun- 
boats. 

At the close of Jefferson's administration wide financial dis- 
tress prevailed in the country, and the prosperous commerce 
of the previous years was almost destroyed. 

All these things tended to embitter the contest for the elec- 



James Madison. i i 7 

tion of his successor. " It was like a death -grapple between 
the two great parties, the Federal and the Republican. " 

The result proved a triumph for the latter. Aaron Burr's 
" great little Madison," the scholar of Princeton, the polished 
host of Montpellier, was elected President of the United 
States. 

Jefferson went back to his farm and his library, happy to 
surrender the post around which the storms were beating so 
furiously, but rejoiced that the friend who shared his deepest 
political convictions would succeed him. 

It was not in the nature of things that the scholarly, peace- 
loving President who went to the executive chair at that agi- 
tated time would have a peaceful administration. 

Mistress Dolly Madison, always bent on ameliorating politi- 
cal animosities, passed from her own simple home to be mistress 
of the White House drawing-room. It was her lot to be virtu- 
ally — what no other woman has ever been — lady of the nation 
for sixteen years. 

England still continued to carry herself with all the old 
arrogance toward America. No statements of facts, no appeal 
to instincts of common right and justice, could move the 
haughty, insolent government. The time came when the out- 
raged country could endure no more. On June 8, 1812, Presi- 
dent Madison approved the act of Congress which declared war 
between the United States and Great Britain. 

The history of that war cannot be told here. It can only 
be said that the feeble American navy, which had been the 
scorn and jest of England, won its first laurels in encounters 
with its powerful foe. 

The American forces met on land with a series of disasters. 
The one, however, which overshadowed all the rest, was the 
taking and burning of Wa.shington by a British army of five 
thousand men, who landed on the Patiixcnt, near the point 



1 1 8 Our Presidents. 



where the river enters Chesapeake Bay. The enemy moved 
rapidly and without encountering vigorous resistance upon the 
unprotected national capital. " At Bladensburg, by which 
they marched, there was a brief skirmish between the British 
and some American regulars and militia." The noise of the 
cannon was heard at Washington, and struck terror to the hearts 
of the inhabitants, who fled from their homes. In a little while, 
the redcoats were moving in solid triumphant columns through 
the streets of the straggling, silent, undefended city. 

Of course everything lay at their mercy. The President, 
who was not a soldier, had hurried off " to meet the officers in 
a council of war. " There was nobody to take command. Mrs. 
Madison, left at the White House, was in imminent danger of 
falling into the hands of the enemy. Her husband, too, could 
not return to her rescue, lest he should be captured. He sent 
messages, entreating her to fly in time, and " to save the cabi- 
net papers, public and private." The mistress of the drawing- 
room proved now what fine stuff lay under all her grace and 
gentleness. She secured the papers and the plate ; she refused 
to leave the premises, though the enemy was close at hand, 
until a large portrait of General Washington " screwed to the 
wall " should be taken down. 

In the hurry and confusion of the time, it was not possible 
to do this, so the frame was broken, and the precious canvas 
carried off. 

During those trying hours, Mrs. Madison Avrote some mes- 
sages to her sister, which throb Avith the life and agitation of 
the time : " Here I am still within sound of the cannon ! Mr. 
Madison comes not. May God protect us ! Two messengers 
covered with dust come to bid me fly, but here I mean to wait 
for him." 

At last, however, she was prevailed upon to enter her car- 
riage and leave the White House, over which a little later the 



James Madison. 119 



British soldiers were swarming, and which was burned that 
night. 

At length, in a little tavern in an apple orchard, Mrs. Madi- 
son found shelter from the darkness and the furious storm which 
had begun to rage outside. Here at last her husband joined 
her ; but at midnight, a breathless, panic-stricken courier ar- 
rived upon the scene, with tidings that the enemy had dis- 
covered the President's hiding-place and was on his track. He 
yielded to the entreaties of his friends and went out in the 
storm which filled that August night with its fury, yet which 
was less to be dreaded than the foe close at hand : he found 
shelter in a miserable hovel in the woods, and listened through 
the roaring of the winds for the tramp of the British soldiers. 
James Madison lived to be a very old man, but he could 
never have forgotten that night in the lonely hovel with the 
storm lashing the low roof, where he waited, dreading the 
rush and the shouts that would be louder and fiercer than the 
tempest. 

Had the soldiers who were ravaging Washington that niglit 
had the faintest inkling of the truth, they might easily have 
hunted down and taken captive the noblest quarry of all — the 
President of the United States ! 

Day came at last, but it was long before Madison learned 
the welcome news that the British had retreated to their ship- 
ping. The President was saved, but the White House was a 
heap of blackened ruins. 

There is no time here to linger on the events which closed 
the war in 1815. The Treaty of Ghent, the victory at New 
Orleans, which set the crowning glory on Andrew Jackson's 
military career, belong to this period. 

A little more than two years later James Madison's second 
presidential term expired, and he returned to the quiet, beauti- 
ful home at Montpellier. Here again, in his ** dear librarj' " 



• 
1 20 Our Presidents. 



as he called it, in the cultivation and adornment of his estate, 
and in the exercise of a large, gracious hospitality, the delicate, 
small-framed, scholarly ex-President lived a life which, in its 
large outlines, much resembled that of Mount Vernon and 
Monticello ; there the years went over him, lightly, gently, 
happily, as years can go over the head of mortal. 

He had still some last service to render his native state. 
" In 1829 hs '^^s ^ member of the Virginia convention to 
reform the old Constitution. When he rose, after a long silence, 
to utter a few words, the members left their seats and crowded 
around the venerable figure, dressed in black, the thin gray hair 
powdered in the fashion of other days, to catch the low whis- 
pers of that voice." 

Madison had had, of course, to pay the heavy toll on that 
high road where his life lay. Party strifes ran very fierce in his 
day, and, as the leader of the Republicans, he was the target 
for all sorts of envenomed shafts. 

A vein of humor brightened this grave, reserved nature, and 
made it gay and joyous as a boy's to those who knew it best. 

" Madison had a strong relish for everything facetious and 
told a story admirably ; his sunshine of temperament never 
deserted him. In the weary hours of pain, during his old age, 
his humor flashed up spontaneously as before. When some 
friends came to visit him, he sank back upon his couch with 
the smiling words : ' I always talk more easily when I lie ! ' " 

Born and nurtured in the midst of slavery, he was, like 
Washington and Jefferson, opposed to it. As early as 1758, 
expressing in a letter to Mr. Randolph his wish not to enter 
upon the practice of law, he adds : " Another of my wishes is 
to depend as little as possible upon slave-labor." 

Many of his contemporaries thought Madison lacking in 
warmth, enthusiasm, nerve. Perhaps this was true. Yet this 
lack may have been owing largely to that very enthusiasm for 



James Madison. i 2 r 



study which crippled his health in his youth and made him a 
semi-invalid all his days. 

America will always owe a vast debt to James Madison for 
his services in critical periods of her history. His figure must 
always stand amid that group of immortal patriots with whom 
he was so long and closely associated. 

There was no son to bear Madison's name at Montpcllier. 
In this respect, as in many others, his fate, whether for good or 
evil, was like Washington's and Jefferson's. His wife, whose 
beauty and grace had shone so conspicuous in the high place 
where she stood by his side, now proved pre-eminently the 
woman of the fireside. She was the devoted companion — the 
unfailing nurse and solace of his declining years. 

Madison must have lived much among his memories as his 
hair grew white, his eyes dim, and his step feeble. But in what 
a spacious gallery those memories moved ! His youth and 
manhood had been passed among the great actors in America's 
early history. He must have lived over all the bitter contro- 
versies amid whicli the Constitution had slowly taken form in 
the old summer of 1787. He must have caught again the 
echoes of the French Revolution which shook American air 
during the closing decade of the last century. The visible signs 
of that great upheaval were all about him The sitting-room at 
Montpcllier was furnished from the Tuilleries. James Monroe, 
when he was in Paris, had gathered some of the furnishings 
from the despoiled palace and sent them home to his friend. 
When the white-haired old man sat or moved with faltering 
steps among these relics, he must have thought of Louis XVI. 
and of Marie Antoinette and of Lafayette. When he remem- 
bered all these things, the low-beating heart must have_ quick- 
ened with the pulses of youth, and James Madison must liave 
forgotten that he too, as well as the portraits in his spacious 
gallery of memories, belonged to another generation. 



122 Our Presidents. 



He was at last much confined to his room and his bed ; but 
the life in the delicate frame flickered on for many years and 
did not go out until James Madison was eighty-five. He tran- 
quilly closed his eyes for the last time, June 28, 1836. 

" Mistress Dolly Madison " — a fragrance seems to cling 
about the old-time name — outlived her husband thirteen years. 
At the time of her death, July 12, 1849, she had reached her 
eighty-second year. She carried the brightness and sweetness 
of her youth into old age, and was admired and loved to the 
last day of her life. 

Pecuniary reverses and anxieties overshadowed her widow- 
hood ; but these were relieved at last, when Congress purchased 
her husband's valuable papers. 

One speech that she made a little while before her death is 
so significant that it must close this brief sketch. One of her 
nieces had gone to her for sympathy in some slight trouble : 
" My dear," she said, " do not trouble about it. There is nothing 
in //lis world worth really caring for. Yes," she repeated, look- 
ing intently out of a window. " I who have lived so long repeat 
to you, there is nothing in this world here below worth caring 
for." 

The world had been very kind to Mistress Dolly Madison, 
and she did not make this speech in any bitterness of spirit. 




Z-^-^z^c 



t^ 



JAMES MONROE. 

At the battle of Trenton, fought amid the cold and snows 
of December 26, 1776, a young Virginia lieutenant carried 
himself with such gallantry that he won the encomiums of the 
Commander-in-chief. 

'' Perceiving that the enemy were endeavoring to erect a bat- 
tery to rake the American lines, he advanced at the head of a 
small detachment, drove the artillery from the gilns, and took 
possession of the pieces." 

During the action a ball struck him in the slioulder. He 
received a captaincy for his bravery. His name was James 
Monroe. 

The officer who received his wound and won his title at 
that time was a mere boy — less than eighteen. He was born 
in that old Westmoreland county, among whose river-meadows 
George Washington sported away his childhood. The family 
emigrated to Virginia in 1652, so its roots had struck for more 
than a century and a quarter in colonial soil, when its young 
descendant won his spurs that winter day. The race came of 
old Scotch cavalier stock. The father of James was a planter. 
His fine, fertile estate lay near the head of " Monroe's Creek, 
which empties into the Potomac." It was also very near 
George Washington's birthplace, although he had passed his 
twenty-sixth birthday a little before James Monroe first saw 
the light. 

Fortune smiled on the boy's beginnings. The tobacco- 
plantations yielded large incomes in those days, and the child- 
hood of James Monroe opened under the happy, ancestral roof, 



124 Our Presidents. 



amid ease and comfort. What was better than that, too, he 
came of a vigorous, sturdy, freedom-loving breed. He breathed 
from his cradle an atmosphere in which liberty was held to be 
the noblest and dearest of man's possessions. 

During his boyhood the war-clouds of the Revolution were 
slowly gathering. Among his earliest memories must have been 
the talk about the "Stamp Act." The blue-eyed, fair-haired 
boy must have drunk in the solemn denunciations of his elders 
whenever they uttered those two hated monosyllables. James 
Monroe listened ; what is more to the purpose, he felt and 
remembered. 

They gave tlie planter's son the best advantages which the 
old commonwealth afforded. He was sent to a "fine classical 
school, and at sixteen entered William and Mary ("ollege." 
Here he studied for two years, but it must have been study a 
good deal broken by the march of events. Lexington, Con- 
cord, Bunker Hill, must have been names that spoiled many 
a recitation. For the young undergraduate had inherited 
with his fire and pluck the liberty-loving instincts of his 
race. It was quite characteristic that after the Declaration of 
Independence he should throw up his books, leave college, 
" hasten to General Washington's headquarters at New York, 
and enroll himself as a cadet in the army." 

This was done in one of the darkest hours of those dark 
days. The trained British veterans were carrying everything 
before them. The Tories were triumphant and defiant. James 
Monroe took his place bravely in the ranks. He was with the 
army through all the sad reverses which make the darkest chap- 
ter in the history of the American Revolution. He shared the 
retreats from Haarlem Hights and from White Plains, and the 
miserable marchings through the Jerseys. At last he faced his 
enemies at Trenton, and in his first battle was wounded and 
made a captain. 



James Monroe. 1 25 



In the later campaigns young Monroe served as aide on the 
the staff of Lord Sterling, with the rank of Major. He was in 
the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth. Wash- 
ington, who had now conceived a high opinion of young 
Monroe's abilities, sent him to Virginia to raise a new regi- 
ment, of which he was to be colonel, but Virginia had poured 
her young men into the northern army until she had feAv left 
for her own defense. Monroe's temporary promotion served 
him an ill turn now, as he had " lost his place in the Conti- 
nental line." 

Disappointed with his failures and with his forced inactiv- 
ity, Monroe was the victim of some gloomy moods at this 
period. There is a hint, too, of some private grief in a letter 
to Lord Sterling, where he calls himself a recluse, and says 
" he retired from society with almost a resolution never to 
enter it again." 

Everything seems to have been uncertain and tentative in 
his life at this time ; he had a notion of going abroad ; Jeffer- 
son, always eager to serve his friends, gave him a letter to 
Benjamin Franklin, who was at this time taking the heart of 
Paris by storm. 

But the young soldier at last wisely resolved to return to 
his books. He began the study of law with Jefferson, who 
was Governor of Virginia, who " had a large and admirable 
library," and who must have been the most delightful and 
stimulating of teachers. 

Those were hard times for Virginia and her Governor. In 
the frequent British descents on her soil, the law-studies were 
much broken into. Monroe was too ardent a patriot not to 
throw aside his books and hurry to the rescue when the invader 
was spoiling his native State. But the victory at Yorktown put 
an end to further British raids on the Atlantic seaboard. 

Colonel James Monroe — he had received his commission, 



126 Our Presidents. 



although he never organized his regiment — entered on his long 
public career at a very early age. He was only twenty-three 
when he became a member of the Virginia Assembly and also 
of the Executive Council. The following year he was chosen 
delegate to the Continental Congress. These were great honors 
for so young a man. He was fortunate enough to reach An- 
napolis, where the Congress was then sitting, in time to witness 
that great historic scene, when George Washington resigned 
his commission as Commander-in-chief of the Army of the 
Revolution. 

James Monroe went, heart and soul, into the service of this 
Congress. He was in its sessions at Annapolis, at Trenton, at 
New York ; for his term extended through three years. 

During this time he could not fail to be profoundly im- 
pressed by the inadequacy of the powers with which the old 
Congress had been invested by the States. He ardently de- 
sired that its authority should be strengthened and enlarged. 
The nation, after the close of the Revolution, had gone its 
blind, stumbling ways. The country was sinking deeper into 
impoverishment, disaster, and gloom. Business was pros- 
trated, disorder was rampant, while each of the emancipated 
States regarded her sisters with more or less suspicion and 
jealousy. 

The young delegate perceived with dismay the imminent 
danger of the Union's " crumbling to pieces." In the wide 
commercial distress, with the vast public debt weighing like an 
incubus upon the nation, and with all its energies crippled by 
its lost credit and its exhausted finances, the compact was 
rapidly growing weaker which had held the States together 
and carried them triumphantly through the War of the 
Revolution. 

James Monroe bore an active part in events which led to 
the convention at Annapolis. But this represented only five 



James Monroe. 127 



States, and seemed absurdly unequal to the demands of the 
times when it broke up. 

But it had recommended another convention to represent 
all the States and meet in Philadelphia during the summer of 
1787. 

The convention met. The Constitution of the United 
States was the result. 

Before this New York and Massachusetts had had serious 
difficulties about a boundary line. James Monroe was one of 
the nine judges appointed to settle the dispute. This fact 
indicates the high opinion his contemporaries had formed of 
the young congressman's judgment and abilities. 

It was in New York, while he was attending the session of 
Congress there, that he found his fate. He met Miss Elizabeth 
Kortright, " daughter of Laurence Kortright, a former captain 
in the British army. After the close of the war he remained in 
the city, where he brought up his one son and four daughters." 
His English prejudices must have undergone vast changes in 
his new home. That stanchest of Americans, James Monroe, 
saw and loved the beautiful, accomplished daughter of the 
English officer. They were married in 1786. Their union of 
half a century proved one of much happiness and devoted 
affection. 

Their marriage occurred in a stormy political era. The 
year following, the Constitution was framed and its accept- 
ance by the States convulsed the country. Monroe, who 
had been much under the personal influence of Jefferson, 
and who entertained very ardent democratic ideas, was alarmed 
lest the Constitution should confer too large powers upon 
the central government. His fears led him, with many others, 
to believe that he detected a strong monarchical bias in the 
instrument. Madison, Hamilton and Jay were then straining 
every nerve to secure its adoption. Monroe, as ardent a 



128 Our Presidents. 



patriot as any of the trio, held steadily to his convictions. 
Events were to amply prove his mistake, but history must re- 
cord that he opposed the ratification of the Constitution by the 
States. 

Soon after this had taken place, Monroe became a member 
of the United States Senate, where he remained for more than 
three years. Alexander Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of 
the Treasury, was at this time, in many respects, the most 
important figure in American politics. That fertile, imperious 
genius was laying the foundations of the new government ; it 
was organizing the great Federal party ; it was bracing the 
national credit ; it was infusing new courage and energy into 
all the business interests of the country ; it was inaugurating a 
new and large financial policy, with a splendid audacity and 
ability which dazzled the nation and carried everything along 
with it. 

James Monroe took alarm at the power and success with 
which the brilliant and irresponsible Secretary was going on his 
way. Hamilton's audacious financial schemes bewildered the 
Virginian, who had no business genius. He doubted, too, the 
wisdom of Washington's public measures, in which the influence 
of his former aide was clearly apparent. 

But all these interests were soon largely merged in another 
for James Monroe. His appointment as Minister-Plenipoten- 
tiary to France took him and his friends by surprise. He had 
opposed the President's proclamation of neutrality between 
England and France ; his sympathies were strongly on the side 
of our ancient ally. It was for this reason, and in order to 
restore the old friendly relations with that power, just now a 
good deal embittered toward America, that Washington sent 
the new embassy to France. 

Monroe arrived in Paris at a most critical period in its 
history. The city was still holding its breath with the horror 



James Monroe. 129 



of the French Revohition. No foreign minister had been 
received by the French Republic. Monroe waited more than 
a week without a sign of recognition from any source. Then 
he bearded the Hon in his den. He addressed a letter, an- 
nouncing his embassy, to the President of the National Con- 
vention. 

This characteristic letter accomplished its purpose. Two 
o'clock in the afternoon, August '15th, 1795, ^^'^^ one of the 
most momentous, as well as picturesque, hours in the long, 
crowded life of James Monroe. At that time he was presented 
to the National Convention. It was a scene to thrill the 
calmest nerves, to kindle the most sluggish imagination. All 
around him were men who had borne a leading part in the 
terrors of the French Revolution, men who had at last taken 
their lives in their hands, defied Robespierre to his face, and 
sent him to the guillotine. 

The echo of the Revolution was still in the air ; its strife 
and agony must still have shadowed men's faces, as tlic hand- 
some young envoy from America, with his frank blue eyes, fair 
hair, and his fine, tall figure, stood, the object of every man's 
curious gaze, in the National Convention. 

He received the most enthusiastic welcome. The president, 
Merlin de Douai, gave Monroe the " accolade," and made a 
speech glowing with praise and affection for America. The 
flags of the two nations were intertwined to symbolize the close 
union of the republics. 

The instructions of the new minister had been somewhat 
vague, and large powers had been left to his own discretion in 
a situation which afforded no precedents. In the excitement 
and emotion of so unparalleled an hour, Monroe's ardent, 
impulsive nature was, no doubt, more or less carried away. 
His speech in the Convention was calculated to commit his 
country too far to the side of France. Her great rival across 
9 



130 Our Presidents. 



the Channel was watching, suspicious and angry, the American 
attitude at this juncture. 

Monroe's speech encountered much hostility at home. The 
Federal party denounced his talk and his conduct. England 
was incensed at such cordial relations with her bitterest foe. 
His first embassy could not have proved a bed of roses to James 
Monroe. 

His life, at this period, was full of dramatic incidents, of 
intercourse with historic characters, of participation in historic 
events. These would form a most curious and thrilling chapter 
in an ampler biography. 

One event is, however, of such signal interest that it cannot 
be omitted here. 

The Marquis of Lafayette had, long before Monroe's arrival 
in France, been captured on the frontier, and was now languish- 
ing through long hopeless days in the dungeon of Olmiitz. 
His wife, with her two little children, was confined in the prison 
of La Force, in daily dread of being ordered to the guillotine. 

A strong attachment had existed between Lafayette and 
Monroe when both were young officers in the war of the Revo- 
lution. When the French nobleman was wounded at German- 
town, Monroe was at his side to afford him every possible aid. 

The condition of the Marchioness could not fail to awaken 
the warmest sympathies of the American minister. It must 
have haunted him by night and by day, for it at last forced 
him to a course which was not only perilous to the imprisoned 
woman, but might bring himself into serious trouble if he gave 
offense to the suspicious and irascible government. 

But Monroe, after long debate with himself, resolved to 
defy everything, and follow the promptings of his heart. He 
could do nothing without the assistance of his wife. She 
shared his sympathies, and on this occasion she comes into his- 
toric foreground in the most memorable scene of her life. 



James Monroe. 13^ 

She consented to have an interview with the Marchioness. 
This must have been a terrible strain on tlie heart and nerves 
of a sensitive, fragile woman. Indeed, her husband was appre- 
hensive of the result. But she assured him of her ability to 
bear herself with calmness through the trying ordeal. 

One afternoon the carriage of the American minister drew 
up before the entrance of La Force prison. Mrs. Monroe 
had come with all the pomp and equipage which her hus- 
band's position allowed. The prison authorities were evidently 
impressed by her courage and her appearance. '* They con- 
ducted her to a reception-room instead of taking her to the 
prison-cell of the Marchioness." 

The minutes must have seemed hours to Mrs. Monroe, 
while she waited ; but at length the door opened and a wo- 
man, young, gentle, with a mournful, pallid face, stood there 
between the guards. 

It was not safe, at that time, in that presence, to exchange 
many words. Probably neither woman was equal to long 
talk. The Marchioness had been expecting the summons to 
her execution. When she saw the lovely, pitying face of the 
stranger, she could only sob. The interview appears to have 
been a brief one. But Mrs. Monroe did not lose her self- 
command. " Before she took leave she promised, in the 
hearing of the guards, to see the prisoner again on the following 
day. " 

But her carriage never again drew up before the gloomy 
prison of La Force. The next day the Marchioness was 
liberated. It is said " that her execution had been ordered on 
the afternoon of Mrs. Monroe's visit." 

Monroe's courage and promptness might not have been suc- 
cessful, had not the Convention desired, at this time, to main- 
tain cordial relations with the United States. The government 
could not fail to perceive that it would be placed at a vast dis- 



132 Our Presidents. 



advantage if it manifested displeasure at Monroe's grateful 
remembrance of Lafayette's services in the Revolution. 

The Marchioness left France as soon as possible with her 
two young daughters. She traveled in disguise to join her 
husband with heroic devotion in his imprisonment at Olmiitz. 

It is not possible to enter into the details of Monroe's mis- 
sion in France. It is probable that his ardent, impetuous 
nature may have led him into some mistakes. He did not per- 
haps estimate the importance of maintaining harmonious rela- 
tions with England, while his own government was dealing with 
all the great problems which it had to face at its birth. It 
should be remembered in his excuse, too, that it was not an 
easy matter to keep clear of offense with the stern, aggressive 
French Republic. Monroe fell more or less out its of favor, 
while he did not conciliate the authorities at home. 

In 1796 he was recalled, and he returned to America in an 
aggrieved, resentful mood. He was received with great honor 
at a banquet by the Republican leaders in Philadelphia ; but 
Washington evidently felt some displeasure when he wrote from 
Mount Vernon that " Colonel Monroe had passed through 
Alexandria, without honoring him with a call." 

Monroe published a book in which he explained and de- 
fended his course in the foreign embassy with spirit and ability. 
The book at least created a profound sensation among the 
political leaders of that day. 

Soon after his return Monroe was elected Governor of 
Virginia. He held that office for three years — the term allowed 
by the Constitution. 

During the first years of this century, and while Thomas Jef- 
ferson was President of the United States, the sun of Napoleon 
Bonaparte was climbing to its splendid zenith. His name prob- 
ably was on the lips of all civilized people oftener than that of 
any other man in the world. His career was watched in the 



James Monroe. 133 



United States with very different feelings. One party regarded 
it with unbounded admiration and enthusiasm ; another feared 
and dreaded that triumphant, remorseless genius. The posses- 
sion of Louisiana by the French, might, at any moment, jeopard- 
ize the cordial relations of the new governments. Jefferson 
had early perceived this. With all his partiality for France, he 
was too sincere a patriot to be blinded where the interests of 
his ovvn country were at stake. He had long been resolved 
that if statesmanship and diplomacy could effect it, the United 
States should become the owner of the vast territory of Louisi- 
ana, which included the outlets of the Mississippi. 

The necessities of Bonaparte were Jefferson's opportunity. 
The French Consul was straitened for money, as he was about 
to enter on that long and bitter struggle which succeeded the 
brief {)eace of Amiens. 

Whatever dreams may sometimes have visited that teeming 
brain — that insatiate ambition — of establishing a vast trans- 
Atlantic empire, Napoleon's present designs lay far out of the 
line of American conquests. 

Spain had, a little while before, ceded Louisiana to France. 
Jefferson resolved to send Monroe to the legation at Paris to 
promote the great purpose he had so deeply at heart. 

Monroe departed perfectly informed of the wishes of his 
Chief, and with large liberty of action in a case where there 
were no precedents to guide him. He arrived in the nick of 
time. The situation can be summed up in a few words: 
Bonaparte, as we have seen, wanted money. America wanted 
Louisiana. The Consul could not fail to perceive that Avhen 
hostilities were resumed, British fleets and armies would be 
sent to capture the defenseless Mississippi Delta. Better sell 
Louisiana for means to fight England, than see her fall, a little 
later, into the hands of the enemy, and not be able to strike a 
blow in her defense. 



134 Our Presidents. 



Reasoning after this fashion, Napoleon resolved to sell 
Louisiana, but he declared to his most trusted councilors that it 
cost him a struggle to part with the territory. There was, of 
course, some haggling about the price. But when both parties 
to the transaction were thoroughly in earnest, especially when 
one of the powers concerned was Napoleon Bonaparte, the 
bargain was sure to be promptly consummated. The great sale 
was effected in less than a month's time. Louisiana cost the 
United States fifteen millions of dollars, when that sum meant 
vastly more than it does at this time. The French treasury 
was replenished, and Europe shook again with the tread of 
armies. 

" It has been said that this was probably the largest transfer 
of real estate which was ever made since Adam was presented 
with the fee simple of Paradise." 

Monroe's part in this great land sale, though it cannot be 
related here, was a very important one. His influence had 
much to do with bringing the matter to a successful issue. " He 
always regarded this as the most important of his public ser- 
vices." 

Of course no one of the principals engaged in the famous 
sale anticipated its historic importance. Jefferson, writing 
about the coveted territory, a little while before, had described 
it as "a barren sand." Probably most Frenchmen regarded it 
in that light. 

Monroe took leave of Bonaparte June 24, 1803. He was 
about to depart for England, to which he had been ordered by 
his government. 

The two men form so striking a group at the moment of 
their interview, that it is worth while to pause before it. Napo- 
leon was, at this time, no doubt, fully bent on attaining the 
French crown and throne. He probably regarded the simple 
American envoy as at an infinite remove from his greatness ; yet 



James Monroe. 



fourteen years later, he was eating out his heart at St. Helena, 
and the American was President of the United States. 

Arrived in England, Monroe found hard lines. The power- 
ful, arrogant government paid little heed to the remonstrances 
of the American minister. It was useless to urge his country's 
grievances, to talk of the rights of neutrals, the outrages on 
American commerce, the impressment of American seamen. 

Monroe's foreign mission had been a triple one. Besides 
France and England, it included Spain. Events connected 
with the sale of Louisiana now forced him to repair to the 
Peninsula. On his way he passed through Paris, and was 
present at the crowning of Napoleon, a scene fruitful of sug- 
gestions when looked at with American eyes. 

Arrived in Spain, Monroe vainly attempted to reach any 
agreement with regard to the eastern boundaries of Louisiana. 
These had not been clearly defined at the time of the sale. The 
slow, stately, half moribund court remembered its ancient glory 
in its present decay, and took alarm lest the young, energetic 
nation in the West should get some advantage in the Floridas. 

Baffled in the Spanish mission, Monroe returned to England. 
Here he set to work with his usual vigor, aided by William 
Pinckney, who had joined him in the legation, to obtain a treaty 
which should in some faint way recognize the rights of Ameri- 
can shipping and American merchants. But he had a haughty, 
obstinate and half-hostile government to deal with. It was 
only after long negotiations and immense concessions that he 
succeeded in obtaining a treaty. But it did not touch the vital 
point of the impressment of American seamen. It afforded 
no redress for the capture of American vessels and goods by 
English cruisers. The treaty was so unsatisfactory that Jeffer- 
son himself, with all his aversion to war, refused to ratify it. 

Monroe's surprise and mortification when he learned this 
were extreme. His mission, which had proved such a brilliant 



136 Our Presidents. 



success in France, was a humiliating failure in England. Yet 
the wearied, disappointed statesman had done his best to 
serve his country. It was not his fault, certainly, that England 
refused to give up the right of search, that Spain kept an iron 
grip on the Floridas. 

At last Monroe returned to America. The chagrins and 
disappointments he had encountered in his foreign mission had 
not seriously shaken the faith which the Republican party re- 
posed in him. It was now talking of nominating him for the 
next Presidency, but the choice, for various reasons, fell on 
Madison. 

While he was in England, Monroe had become disgusted 
with public life ; he desired to leave it and return to his estate 
and the practice of his profession. His salary did not meet the 
expenses, necessarily large, of his position. He had been com- 
pelled to make heavy demands on his private fortunes ; he 
became alarmed at the state of his finances, and felt that he 
now owed all his services to his family. 

But the time was still far distant when James Monroe should 
lay aside his armor. He was again elected Governor of Vir- 
ginia in 181 1, but was called from that post by the President, 
who appointed him Secretary of State. In the following year 
war was declared between England and America. 

Vast cares and responsibilities now fell upon Monroe. He 
proved equal to all the demands made upon his energy and 
ability through those trying years in the nation's life. The 
President, who confided in him absolutely, at last induced his 
old friend to add to his other duties the enormous burdens 
of Secretary of War. During the confusion and disorder of 
that miserable time when Washington was entered and burned, 
Monroe showed that his old dash and bravery were not extincc. 
He was the master-spirit of the hour. He made every effort 
for the defense of the capital ; he did not hesitate to threaten 



James Monroe. 137 



with the bayonet those demoralized citizens who talked of capit- 
ulating to the enemy. 

Placed at the head of the War Department, he infused 
new spirit and vigor into military affairs. " The treasury was 
exhausted ; the government's credit was gone," when James 
Monroe pledged his private fortune to supply the country's 
pressing needs. 

No reverses daunted that indomitable energy, that devoted 
patriotism. Monroe was bent on securing the victory of his 
country. He proposed to increase the army to a hundred 
thousand men. This unpopular measure would, if carried out, 
be certain to defeat his election for the next Presidency. 
James Monroe was certain of this, but he did not flinch. 

When England sent her great fleet and ten thousand vete- 
rans, the flower of her victorious armies, to New Orleans, to 
secure the mouths of the Mississippi, James Monroe dispatched 
orders to the governors of the South-West. The strong, trench- 
ant sentences have the ring of that courage with which, years 
ago, the college youth had led his small column at Trenton 
against the advancing red-coats. " Hasten your militia to New 
Orleans. Do not wait for this government to arm them ; put 
all the arms you can into their hands ; let every man bring ' 
his rifle with him ; we shall see you paid." 

A little later the battle of New Orleans was won, and soon 
afterward America learned that the Treaty of Ghent had been 
signed. 

There was no need of the hundred thousand men. 

In 181 7 James Monroe became President of the United 
States. The new administration, called " the era of good 
feeling," from its lack of all disturl)ing issues, proved in many 
respects the most peaceful which the country had known in its 
twenty-eight years of presidents. 

Soon after his inauguration Mr. Monroe set out on an exten- 



13^ Our Presidents. 



sive career through the country to inspect the various miUtary 
posts. The journey must have been much Uke a triumphal prog- 
ress of kings, although the object of all the enthusiasm, the pro- 
cessions, the welcomes and banquets, wore " a blue homespun 
overcoat, light-colored underclothes, and a military cocked hat, 
the undress uniform of the officers of the Revolutionary War." 

The sight of the " old cocked hat " roused immense enthu- 
siasm in all the Revolutionary veterans vv^ho beheld it. The 
President visited the Eastern cities. Boston gave him a grand 
reception. A cavalcade met him on the Neck ; Dorchester 
Heights, the Common, the forts in the harbor, fired salutes. 
Monroe must have enjoyed all these demonstrations in his 
simple, quiet way, though he loved his country more than any 
honors she could bestov/ on him. 

The long Presidential tour included the North-West as far 
as Detroit, and occupied four months. The wearied and much 
feted President reached Washington about the first of October. 

James Monroe's administration was far less eventful and 
dramatic than his foreign missions. 

At the close of four years he was re-elected to the Presi- 
dency. His popularity is best attested by the fact that only a 
single vote was cast against him. 

The affairs which during the double term principally en- 
gaged the attention of the President and his cabinet were 
the " defense of the Atlantic seaboard, the promotion of in- 
ternal improvements, the Seminole War, the acquisition of 
Florida, the Missouri Compromise, and resistance to foreign 
interference with American affairs." 

All these subjects are familiar ground to the students of 
American history. James Monroe earned his most enduring 
laurels in the declaration which was of such immense importance 
to Europe and America, and which will always live in history as 
the Monroe Doctrine. 



jatnes Monroe. 139 



An event occurred near the close of the President's second 
term which kindled a wild enthusiasm throughout the country. 
Lafayette once more set his foot on American soil. After many 
changes, and in another generation, the two comrades-in-arms 
of the Revolution met again. Both were old men now. Laf- 
ayette's young friendship for Monroe had been greatly strength- 
ened by the service the American had rendered him when he 
was a prisoner at Olmiitz. He wrote to his friend with con- 
fiding familiarity, and with a glow of warmest affection. It 
must have been a source of deep gratification to Lafayette that 
the host who now received him as '' the nation's guest," was 
one who had not only done him an unspeakable favor, but was 
that young officer who had stood by his side with sympathy and 
aid, nearly half a century before, when he was wounded at the 
Battle of Germantown. 

James Monroe had nearly reached his sixty-seventh birth- 
day when he left the Presidency to his successor, John Quincy 
Adams, and returned to his home at Oak Hill in Loudon county, 
Virginia. It was a fine estate, though it does not seem to have 
had the varied charm of situation which made such paradises of 
Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Montpellier. Monroe had 
planned his house, .which was a "handsome substantial brick 
building with a wide southern portico, with massive Doric col- 
ums, sorrounded by a grove of magnificent oaks covering sev- 
eral acres. " 

Like the Virginia Presidents, before him, he had no son; 
both his daughters were married. 

Mrs. Monroe was a handsome woman when she was no 
longer a young one. She had seen much of the gay and brill- 
iant side of the world, at a time when her beauty and charm 
made a deep impression in the grand salons and drawing-rooms 
of Europe. She had been brought into familiar acquaintance 
with great historic characters in her own country and in foreign 



140 Our Presidents. 



lands. " Her eldest daughter was educated in Paris at the cel- 
ebrated boarding-school of Madame Campan, and among 
her intimate school friends was the beautiful Hortense de Beau- 
harnais, step-daughter of Bonaparte, and mother of the Emperor 
Louis Napoleon." 

James Monroe lived seven years after his retirement to Oak 
Hill. His life here was simple, kindly, sincere, as it had always 
been. But these years were not merely the restful ones of ad- 
vancing age to that ardent, energetic nature. He was Regent 
of the University of Virginia ; he was a local magistrate, and 
also a member of the Virginia Convention ; he had a large cor- 
respondence at home and abroad and retained an active inter- 
est in public affairs. 

The last years of this noble life were darkened by sorrows 
and pecuniary reverses. The death of Mrs. Monroe, in 1830, 
was an overwhelming blow to her husband. 

At this time his fortunes had greatly dwindled. He had 
neglected them while he was engaged in public life, and the 
positions which he had occupied had involved expenses which 
his salary did not defray, and which compelled him to draw 
heavily on his private resources. 

The thoughts of parting with Oak Hill was distressing to him, 
but he had to face it. " No private subscription came to honor 
or relieve him." 

When Lafayette learned the condition of his old friend's 
affairs he came promptly to his aid, and in the most delicate 
and generous manner conceivable jDlaced part of his Florida 
lands at Monroe's disposal. 

But the offer was not accepted. The old man, whose health 
was much broken, could no longer endure the loneliness of 
Oak Hill. He went to New York to live with one of his 
daughters. He died there July 4th, 183 1, just five years from 
the day that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had expired. 



James Monroe. 14^ 



James Monroe had no brilliant social or oratorical gifts. 
No doubt he is thrown somewhat into the shade by the group 
of great men who surrounded him. But they appreciated him. 
Washington and Jefferson, John Quincy Adams and Madison, 
all bore the strongest testimony to his high character and gifts. 
1 lis biography forms a long record of devoted services to his coun- 
try. It was the opinion of Madison, between whom and himself, 
there existed a life-long intimacy, that America had never fully 
understood or appreciated its fifth President, James Monroe. 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

It was June 17, 1775, throughout the British Colonies of 
North America. In Massachusetts it was the day of Bunker 
Hill. 

On that day a boy, with his mother, still a young woman, 
had climbed one of the hills in the parish of North Braintree, 
and the two stood with faces turned eager and intent in the di- 
rection of Boston, ten miles away. 

This was by no means an unusual spectacle. On that 
summer morning the heights in the vicinity of the small, block- 
aded, seaport town, were occupied by anxious, breathless crowds, 
all gazing toward the dense clouds of smoke which hid the war- 
ships in the harbor. 

Those crowds heard with blanched cheeks the heavy inces- 
sant cannonading of the British fleet. They heard the Ameri- 
can volleysans wer bravely back ; they saw red flames dart 
and leap through the dense smoke. A little later, Charlestown, 
" with its five hundred houses and its one church steeple, that 
had shone a pyramid of fire," was a heap of blackened ruins. 

To the gazers on the heights the scene before them was liter- 
ally one of life and death interest. Husbands and sons, fathers 
and brothers, were in the thick of the fight. On the issue 
of the battle hung the fate of the Colonies, the future of America. 
When that June night fell upon smouldering Charlestown, the 
Battle of Bunker Hill had been fought, and Massachusetts had 
seen the darkest, most glorious day in her history. 

The scene which he had witnessed made an indelible im- 
pression on the boy who climbed the Braintree hill with his 




J, 0} , cAAcuyy^ 



John Quincy Adams. I43 



mother. He had one of those grave, strenuous natures on which 
events produce lasting effects. The incidents of the day had 
no doubt an influence over all his future life. 

John Quincy Adams was, at that time, close to his eighth 
birthday, for he was born July ii, 1767. He was the eldest 
son of John and Abigail Adams, of Braintree. We know what 
these names were afterward to stand for. At the time of the 
boy's birth, his father, a lawyer, not thirty-two years old, and 
after a struggling youth, gradually rising in his profession, 
already bore the character of a stanch patriot. " He had op- 
posed the Stamp Act with great energy and ability." 

The boy bore the name of his maternal great-grandfather, 
John Quincy, who Avas dying at the time the child was baptized. 
" It was filial tenderness that gave the name," he wrote long 
afterward. And then he adds, in his characteristic way, " There 
have been through life perpetual admonitions to do nothing 
unworthy of it." 

The early years of his life were passed between Boston and 
Braintree, as the family changed their home from one place to 
the other. He had been well started. With such a father and 
such a mother, the influences, intellectual and moral, about his 
earhest years, were certain to be of a fine, bracing and elevating 
kind. It did not follow as a necessary corollary that these 
would produce a high type of character, original quality having 
most to do with that matter. But it was his great good fortune 
to have such favorable beginnings. 

A personality so marked must have shown its characteristics 
early. Those young shoulders carried an old head through all 
their childhood. John Quincy Adams was a grave, thoughtful 
boy, caring less for plays and games than he did for the talk of 
his elders. Ingrained truthfulness and honesty, as well as fear- 
lessness and obstinacy, were salient qualities with him, almost 
from infancy. 



144 Our Presidents. 



The talk to which the Braintree boy had been listening all 
his early years must have strongly stimulated his mental facul- 
ties. At the time when he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill, 
he no doubt had very decided opinions on all the great questions 
at issue between England and her revolted colonies. But the 
time for discussion and argument had gone by. Two months 
before the British fleet cannonaded Charlestown Neck, the long 
drama of the Revolution had opened with the fight at Lexing- 
ton and Concord. 

The mother and the son must often have thought of the 
husband and father on that terrible day of Bunker Hill. He 
was absent, in what his wife, with a touch of pathos, calls in her 
letters, " that remote country. " She meant Philadelphia, 
where John Adams, delegate to the second Continental Con- 
gress, was straining every nerve to get George Washington ap- 
pointed Commander-in-chief of the American Army. 

The most momentous event in John Quincy Adams's boy- 
hood occurred more than two years after the Battle of Bunker 
Hill, when his father, at the close of 1777, was appointed envoy 
to France, and decided that his eldest son, then in his eleventh 
year, should accompany him to Europe. 

They had a long, stormy passage from Boston to Bordeaux, 
and the keen, observant boy was placed at a school in Paris, 
where he rapidly acquired the French language. 

A year and a half later the two returned home, and during 
the long voyage young John gave English lessons to the am- 
bassador and his secretary, whom the French Government 
were sending to America. 

The pleased father wrote that the Frenchmen were in rap- 
tures with his son, and the report of the lessons is infinitely 
characteristic of the boy. He was the most exacting of teach- 
ers. He amazed the ambassador by his knowledge. The 
amused chevalier declared that he was master of EngHsh like a 



John Qiiiiicy Adams. 145 



professor. The secretary said to the father, " Your son teaches 
us more than you. He shows us no mercy and makes us no 
compHments. We must have Mr. John." 

The letters of the boy at this period show a remarkable 
maturity of thoughts and purpose. With their stilted, formal 
style they have little of boyhood's dash and freedom, but this 
may be partly owing to the habit of the time. Their chief in- 
terest is in their display of the mental and moral traits of the 
young writer. 

The return home was destined to be a brief one. In about 
three months the two sailed again in the same vessel, the father 
having received a second diplomatic appointment to Europe. 

The next years afforded the boy rare opportunities for 
seeing the world and for meeting illustrious persons. He 
accompanied his father to Holland ; he had brief periods of 
going to school at Paris, at Amsterdam, at Leyden. The 
chances for study, though he probably made the most of them, 
were short, for the boy's good fortune seemed to reach its ze- 
nith, when, just before he attained his fourteenth birthday, he 
found himself engaged in a diplomatic career. Francis Dana, 
envoy to Russia from the United States, actually appointed the 
youth his private secretary. The journey to that cold, semi- 
barbarous country must, more than a century ago, have been 
full of novel experience and adventure to the New England 
lad. The mission was not particularly fruitful of results ; but 
after diligently discharging all his duties for fourteen months, 
young Adams left St. Petersburg and returned alone, making 
his long journey through Sweden and Denmark, seeing much 
with those keen young eyes, before he resumed his studies at 
the Hague. 

He soon after rejoined his father in Paris, where the latter 
was engaged with Franklin and Jefferson in negotiating a final 
treaty of peace between Great Britain and her quondam Col- 



146 Our Presidents. 



onies. Here the boy became at once an additional secretary, 
and had his share in drawing up that famous instrument which 
settled forever the question of the indejoendence of the United 
States. 

This reads already like the history of a long, varied and 
eventful life. It appears incredible that the whole is a rapid 
and very incomplete sketch of a boy who had recently passed 
his sixteenth birthday. 

Mrs. Adams, with her two younger children, joined her hus- 
band, and the long painful, separation, borne on all sides with 
admirable fortitude, ended in a happy, peaceful year at Paris. 

In 1785, a packet from America brought tidings of the 
appointment of John Adams as minister to St. James's. This 
made a great turning point in the career of his eldest 
son, who had now lived seven years in Europe. Foreign travel, 
society and life had great charms for him. His father's new 
position would insure his son an introduction to England's 
greatest statesmen, to her most distinguished men of letters, 
to all that was elegant and splendid in the court life of George 
HI. A dazzling vista must have opened before the eyes of the 
youth. It should be remembered that he was only seventeen 
at the date of his father's appointment. The parents knew 
their son. They left the momentous decision of his future with 
himself. He must have undergone a sharp struggle before he 
decided to return home and enter Harvard College as an under- 
graduate. To realize the moral pluck which such a resolution 
required, we must try to reproduce to ourselves, if in ever so 
shadowy a form, something of the Harvard of that day, with 
its narrow life, its rigid rules, its meagre society. 

Young Adams had to face the immense contrasts between 
the brilliant life that awaited him in England, and the life that 
lay for him in America. But all the dazzling attractions of the 
former could not blind him to the side on which was the per- 



John Qiiincy Adams. 147 



manent advantage. That lay in the harder choice. It is 
doubtful whether Harvard College ever held v/ithin its walls 
a student who had turned his back on so much as John Quincy 
Adams did when he made up his mind to enter them. But 
before he left Paris, he wrote in his grave, sensible way, so un- 
like seventeen : 

" I am determined that so long as I shall be able to get my own living, 
m an honorable manner, I will depend upon no one. My father has been 
so much taken up all his life-time with the interests of the jniblic, that his 
own fortune has suffered by it, so that his children will have to provide for 
themselves, which I shall never be able to do if I loiter away my precious 
time in Europe, and shun going home until I am forced to it. With an ordi- 
nary share of common sense, which I hope I enjoy, at least in America I can 
live independent and free; and rather than live otherwise, I would wish to die 
before the time when I shall be left at my own indiscretion." 

He returned home, studied assiduously for a short time, en- 
tered the junior class at Harvard College, and graduated with 
honor in 1787. He afterward studied law in Newburyport, and 
was admitted to the bar just after he had passed his twenty- 
third birthday. Almost as a matter of course, he established 
himself in Boston. Clients appeared rather slowly for the first 
year, but during the three following ones their numbers grew 
steadily. 

But the rising young lawyer's time and thoughts were not 
wholly engrossed by his profession. An intense, patriotic inter- 
est in public affairs was his birthright. He published over dif- 
ferent signatures various papers, which attracted much attention 
at home and abroad for the ability with which they treated 
critical public questions, especially the new relations of America 
with Europe. 

The writer of such papers could not long remain undiscov- 
ered behind the slight mask of his signature. It is believed 
that they were the immediate cause of his nomination by Presi- 
dent Washington as minister to the Hague. He received his 



148 Our Presidents. 



commission on his twenty-seventh birthday. The embassy 
offered him must have been a welcome change from the drudg- 
ery of the Boston law office. Some passages from young 
Adams's diary show plainly that he had been much chafed 
by the narrow horizon of his life. He felt, the stir of large and 
noble ambitions. He could not be content in that " state of 
useless and disgraceful insignificancy " in which he found him- 
self. " At the age of twenty-five, many of the characters who 
were born for the benefit of their fellow-creatures have ren- 
dered themselves conspicuous among their contemporaries. I 
still find myself as obscure, as unknown to the world, as the 
most indolent or the most stupid of human beings." 

In these words we have the key to John Quincy Adams's 
character. He wrote them, moved by no merely personal and 
ignoble ambitions. He had many faults, angularities, limita- 
tions. Unhappily these were much on the surface, and often 
embittered his relations with others, and made his path, suffi- 
ciently thorny at best, unnecessarily hard and rugged. But 
nobody, familiar with his history, can doubt that his supreme 
aim from first to last was " to live for the benefit of his fellow- 
men." 

"A perilous voyage, a leaky ship, a blundering captain, 
brought him to the Hague October 31, 1794." 

The young diplomat had entered upon a scene which might 
well have confounded the wisest, most experienced statesman. 
The French Revolution was still in its death throes. All 
Europe was arming for the great struggle with France. Adams 
had scarcely presented his credentials, when the Stadtholder 
had to flee before the French conquerors. The ministers of 
foreign courts, for the most part, followed him. The American 
remained. But he was now forced to use all his adroitness, his 
cool judgment, his sound common sense, in order to escape 
compromising relations with the powerful French and Dutch 



John Qjiiucy Adams. I49 



party. They made flattering overtures to the young diplomat, 
whose secret sympathies must have been largely on their side. 
But he preserved his balance through all those exciting times. 
The government, however, to which he had been accredited 
had disappeared, and there was really nothing for him to do, a 
condition utterly distasteful to his habits and temperament. 
He was debating whether to return home, when advices from 
the President decided him to remain. Washington, who always 
weighed his words, ventured on a prophecy, " that Adams would 
soon be found at the head of the diplomatic corps, be the gov- 
ernment administered by whomsoever the people may choose." 

He remained at the Hague, narrowly observing the march 
of events, and characteristically making the most of his time, 
*• studying, reading, learning foreign languages, the usages of 
diplomacy, the habits of distinguished society." 

It is impossible in this sketch to dwell on the episode of 
young Adams's visit to England. He found himself in an awk- 
ward position. He was not minister to the court which, for 
its own purposes, attempted to treat him as one. He had, at 
best, only some " rather vague instructions to discuss certain 
arrangements between the two governments." His shrewdness 
and good sense again carried him successfully through all dififi- 
culties, though it was not easy to avoid giving offense when 
declining the diplomatic and social honors which were forced 
upon him. 

But this visit to London was memorable to John Quinry 
Adams for an event that colored his whole after-life and was 
the source of its deepest, most permanent happiness. He 
became at this time engaged to Miss Louise Catherine John- 
son, daughter of Joshua Johnson, American consul at London. 

After a brief absence, he returned to England, where his 
marriage took place July 26, 1797. Miss Johnson was a young 
lady whose character and varied social accomplishments fitted 



150 Our Presidents. 



her to adorn the high positions to which her husband's long 
pubHc life called her. The happy domestic relations of Mr. 
Adams, which continued for half a century, proved the great 
solace and satisfaction of a career that was otherwise stormy 
with great moral struggles and conflicts. 

He was appointed minister to Portugal at the close of 
Washington's administration. Before he had set out for the 
post it was changed to that of Berlin. At this juncture a deli- 
cate question presented itself. John Adams had succeeded 
Washington in the Presidency. The sensitive honor of both 
father and son took alarm, lest the continuance of the latter in 
public office should nov/ be open to the charge of nepotism. 
On the other hand, it seemed cruel that the son's career should 
be cut short in the midst of its promise by his father's success. 
The young man did not hesitate. He was ready to resign his 
office at once, and in a manly and spirited letter to his mother 
declared that he " could neither solicit nor expect anything 
from his father." 

Washington now came to the aid of the perplexed President. 
He insisted that the son " ought not to be denied that promo- 
tion in the diplomatic service to which his abilities entitled 
him." 

Accepting this view of the matter, Mr. Adams was appointed 
to Berlin, but he had some difficulty in gaining admission to the 
city. " The lieutenant on guard at the gates had never heard 
of the United States of America, and one of his private soldiers 
had to explain to him what they were ! " 

Mr. Adams's mission to Berlin promised to be hardly more 
fruitful than that at the Hague. The new nation across the 
seas was of little consequence in the eyes of the ancient gov- 
ernments, absorbed in French politics, with which their own 
existence seemed so closely bound up. It goes without saying 
that Mr. Adams did all that he could to serve his country, and 



John Qiiincy Adams. 1 5 ^ 

succeeded at last in securing a treaty of amity and commerce 
between Prussia and the United States. His work was done 
now, and he appHed for his recall home. While awaiting the 
answer — long delayed in those days — he visited some countries 
of Europe which he had not yet seen. It was a principle with 
him, as well as a pleasure, to improve his time and opportunities 
to the utmost. 

Then the recall came, one of the last acts of his father's 
administration. 

The change from the European courts to the Boston law 
office could not have been agreeable. But lie met all its diffi- 
culties with his native philosophy and his indomitable will. 

He came, too, upon a scene especially calculated to try his 
temper and harass his feelings. In the quiet paternal home to 
which the elder Adams had now returned, the younger must 
have heard the long story of what his father regarded as the 
shameful machinations and infinite wrongs of his enemies. 

This is not the place to enter into that story. It belongs to 
the history of the fierce struggle between the Federalists and 
the Republicans, with which the nineteenth century opened in 
America. 

The elder Adams, goaded and incensed beyond endurance 
at the defection in his own party, which he believed, and no 
doubt with justice, had been at the bottom of his own defeat, 
must have gone over his wrongs and trials to his son in his 
strong, terse, passionate fashion. 

Nobody, probably, could listen to the sturdy, true hearted 
old patriot without being moved by all he had passed through, 
and the listener was this time one whose traditions and filial 
sympathies, would all incline him strongly to his father's viev/ 
of the case. 

But John Quincy Adams was singularly capable of reflecting 
that there was a reverse side to the shield, though it might have 



152 Our Presidents, 



been cruel to suggest this to the old statesman, stung and 
humiliated by all the circumstances of his recent defeat. 

The younger Adams, fortunately absent, had not been 
embroiled in the party strifes which had shaken the country. 
That he was the son of his father was probably the worst 
charge — no small one in their eyes — which the Federalists 
could bring against him. 

On April 5, 1802, the Boston Federalists elected him to the 
State Senate. He promptly accepted the office, though it must 
have seemed to his contemporaries a vast descent for a man 
who had represented his country eight years at the courts of 
Europe. But they probably thought more of the contrast than 
he did himself. One of John Quincy Adams's finest qualities 
was his readiness to serve the people in any office which they 
bestowed upon him. 

He did not remain long in the State Senate, yet the time 
was not too brief for him to display his independence of 
thought and action, and greatly irritate some of his sup- 
porters. However, he could not have alienated the majority 
of his party, for the next year they sent him a Senator to 
Washington. 

In October he set out for the national capital — the rude 
little village which must have shocked the representatives of 
foreign courts, accustomed to the splendors of European cities. 
Mr. Adams may not have cared what they thought about it, 
but he was concerned to find that Washington ''held no church 
of any denomination. " 

He probably was not prepared, even by the parental talk, 
for the intense hostility which he at once encountered. In its 
atmosphere he must have gained a more vivid comprehension 
of all that his father had undergone. The triumphant Re- 
publicans, the disappointed and exasperated Federalists, who 
chose to hold the elder Adams responsible for the defeat of the 



John Qiiimy Adams. 153 

party, alike vented their malice on the son. He was met on all 
sides with coldness, if not with insults. " Any motion that he 
made was sure to be lost. Any measure that he supported was 
certain to meet with virulent opposition." 

A man with a less tough-fibered character, less sustained by 
a firm sense of rectitude, might have been overborne by this 
powerful hostility. Mr. Adams felt it acutely, but it was not 
in that resolute, dauntless nature to succumb. Time worked 
in his favor. At the end of four years the rancor of both par- 
ties had largely worn itself out. The Massachusetts Senator 
at last took the role among his colleagues in the Senate to 
which his abilities entitled him. 

A Federalist of that period would doubtless have justified 
his opposition to Mr. Adams by the simple declaration that 
" his party could not trust him." 

There was much apparent truth in this allegation. With his 
strong personality, his independence of thought, speech and 
action, it was impossible for John Quincy Adams ever to work 
on mere party lines. He was always sternly conscious that he 
owed his highest allegiance to his sense of duty. When, with 
such a man, it came to a question of right, party affiliations 
and interests were like flax in the flame. 

Burning questions now came to the foreground in American 
affairs. The century has grown old. The issues, of such over- 
shadowing importance at its dawn, have so long been relegated 
to the past, that it is difficult to realize how they once divided 
the two great parties in the nation and aroused tlie fiercest pas- 
sions of each. 

These issues can barely be glanced at here. There was the 
purchase of Louisiana, which necessarily involved its future 
admission to the sisterhood of states. Nobody now questions 
the wisdom and far-seeing statesmanship of Jefferson in promptly 
closing the bargain with the French Government. 'J'luit most 



# 



154 Oar Presidents. 



extensive sale of real estate which ever occurred on the planet, 
encountered at the time the bitter, determined hostiHty of the 
Federalists. John Quincy Adams, wiser than his constituents, 
approved of the sale, won from Napoleon's necessities, and 
brought down on his head the vials of Federalist wrath. 

One cannot have the faintest idea of the temper of that old 
time, without bearing constantly in mind the fact that in all 
questions of foreign policy, the Federalists ranged themselves 
stanchly on the side of England, while the Republicans were 
passionately devoted to France. 

The echoes of the French Revolution had not died out of 
American air. All the prejudices and passions which it had 
inflamed, still colored the sympathies and shaped the opinions 
of parties. Mr. Adams had none of the strong English bias of 
his colleagues in the Senate. His long residence in Europe 
had afforded him opportunities for forming opinions and reach- 
ing conclusions which no other of his countrymen had enjoyed. 
A mere stripling, he had borne a share in negotiating the treaty 
of peace between the two countries. But it does not appear 
that he was, even then, blinded to the sentiment and policy of 
England toward her former Colonies. Fie believed the British 
government inveterately hostile to American interests. On this 
matter he and his party in the Senate v/ere as wide apart as the 
poles. But that fact did not influence him. If ever a man had 
the courage of his convictions it was John Quincy Adams. No 
party traditions, no personal interests, no regard for constitu- 
ents, could sway him an inch. It is not surprising that when 
the crisis came and Adams actually supported the President's 
non-importation act, that the amazed, disgusted Federalists of 
Massachusetts cried out that their Senator had betrayed them. 

A month after this the British government issued that famous 
proclamation v/hich declared the European coast blockaded 
from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe. This was a tremendous 



John Quincy Adams. 155 

blow aimed directly at American commerce. " At that time 
the word neutrals included little but Americans." Napoleon 
retaliated by his " Berlin Decree," which declared the British 
Islands blockaded. ** No vessel/' ran the edict of the mighty 
autocrat, " which had been in any English port could thereafter 
enter any port in his dominions." So America was placed 
between two fires. Early in the following year England for- 
bade all commerce of neutrals between the ports of her enemies. 
The " British Orders in Council " followed one after another. 
Their history must be read elsewhere. Suffice it, they were 
aimed at the carrying trade of the United States. Napoleon 
was again prompt with retaliation. His next measure, called 
the " Milan Decree," virtually made him master of the shipping 
of America. The combatants were giants in those days. But 
if the shipmasters obeyed these orders, no resource remained 
but to burn every vessel in American harbors to the water's 
edge. 

No wrong, however, was so keenly felt by the young nation 
as the practice of British imi)ressment. All other acts paled 
before this monstrous one. It seems incredible now that Amer- 
icans could, within this century, have submitted to so great an 
outrage ; one, too, that struck at the very life of so many fire- 
sides, and was the source of such constant and wide-spread 
misery. It is to John Quincy Adams's eternal honor that, at 
this juncture, regardless of party allegiance and interests, he 
took a bold and independent stand. It seemed to his brave, 
resolute spirit that the Federalists were under a spell of alarm 
and dread when it came to taking any measures against Eng- 
lish wrongs, even against this crowning one of impressment of 
American citizens. His soul recoiled at the idea of submission. 
He beheld his party embarras.sed and timorous, where he felt 
the only hope of redress was in a vigorous resentment of Eng- 
land's conduct. He did not, even in his most passionate 



15^ Our Presidents. 



moments, desire that the country should rush, ill prepared, into 
a war with her powerful enemy ; but he was ready for any 
measure, short of the last appeal, which should manifest Amer- 
ica's indignation. 

These feelings explain Mr. Adams's position. In the year 
following the non-importation act, the administration brought 
forward a bill for establishing an embargo. This measure by 
no means met with Mr. Adams's full approval. It was not what 
he desired, but it was, at least, better than nothing. He voted 
for the embargo. 

Then the Federalists turned on him. Their wrath was ter- 
rible. It is but fair to say that, blinded by passion, they 
believed that he had basely deserted their ranks. It was not 
wholly their fault that they could not reach his outlook, see things 
from his wider point of vision. But chagrined and enraged, 
they could think of no language inflamed and rancorous enough 
to describe the conduct of their senator. 

But the Federalists did not end with words. They made 
haste to shake off the " traitor " and " renegade," as they 
delighted to call him. They nominated his successor in the 
Senate under circumstances devised especially to insult him. 
" Mr. Adams was not the man to stay where he was not wanted. 
He sent in his resignation." 

This was in 1808. On the 4th of March of the following 
year James Madison became President of the United States. 
Two days later he notified Mr. Adams of his intention to aj)point 
him Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia. It was a new mission, 
but the Czar, friendly to America, had often expressed a desire 
that an envoy should be accredited to his court. 

Mr. Adams's foes had their chance now. They voted against 
the mission. But Madison had set his heart on it. In June he 
again named Mr. Adams for the post, stating to the Senate that 
he had now additional reasons for sending an embassy to 



John Qitimy Adams. I57 

Russia. His wishes prevailed. This time tlie nomination was 
confirmed. 

"On August 5, 1809," ^'^ ^^'■- Adams's diary records, "he 
left his house at the corner of Boylston and Nassau streets for 
his long journey from Boston to St. Petersburg. His wife, his 
youngest son and his secretary accompanied him. 

" They left Charlestown wharf precisely as the Boston and 
Charlestown bells were ringing one o'clock."' 

Mr. and Mrs. Adams must have had very heavy hearts at 
that time. They were leaving two young boys behind them 
at Braintree. During the long sea voyage, which was attended 
with more or less discomfort and peril, Mr. Adams wrote to his 
young sons, and his words are so wise and true that they ought 
to have a place in the briefest sketch of his life. 

" You must have some one great purpose of existence. 

*' Finally, let the uniform principle of your life, the frontlet 
between your eyes, be how to make your talents and your 
knowledge most beneficial to your country, and most useful to 
mankind." 

Mr. Adams arrived on the scene of his new mission late in 
October. His reception by the Emperor Alexander was most 
gracious and cordial. In the splendid Russian court things 
went more smoothly for John Quincy Adams than they had 
ever done in the plain senate chamber at Washington. The 
new minister did not find very much to do ; but there was a 
great deal to see and to learn. 

There was a gorgeous ceremonious life at that old court of 
the Romanoffs. Mr. Adams mingled with it, thoughtful, self- 
contained, observant. All the pomp and power never for a 
moment dazzled him. .Simple and dignified, he must have been 
an admirable representative of his country at European courts. 

Those four years and a half which Mr. Adams spent in 
Europe were breathless years for the world. The very air was 



15^ Our Presidents. 



full of the clash of armies. The name most frequently on all 
men's lips must have been that of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 
Russian court they could hardly, one imagines, have talked 
about anybody else. When Mr. Adams went to Europe the 
great Corsican held its destinies in his hands. Before the 
American left, the wonderful drama of the invasion of Russia, 
the burning of Moscow, the retreat of the French armies, had 
all been gone through with. 

And that simple, "untitled man," as his mother liked to call 
his father, from the new nation across the seas, was in the 
midst of the court to witness all its long trepidation and 
anguish at the coming of the conqueror, its wild joy and ex- 
ultation over his retreat. Before this had happened a conver- 
sation had occurred between Mr. Adams and the Russian 
Chancellor, Count Romanzoff, which throws a strong light upon 
the character and career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Mr. Adams 
relates the conversation in his diary. At the time it occurred, 
Napoleon was at the zenith of his power and glory. The 
Chancellor and the minister were sitting together on a sofa, 
and over them hung a portrait of the French Emperor, — at 
that time the most powerful man in the world, — " in all his im- 
perial accouterments. " 

Looking at this portrait, Mr. Adams remarked to the Chan- 
cellor, " It was much to be wished that it were possible the wt'/l 
of peace and tranquillity could be inspired into his heart. The 
world might then enjoy a little peace." 

" Count Romanzoff shook his head and said : ' No ; it is im- 
possible. Tranquillity is not in his nature.' I can tell you in 
confidence that he once told me so himself. I was speaking to 
him about Spain and Portugal, and he said to me : 'I must 
always be going. After the peace of Tilsit where could I go 
but to Spain ? I went to Spain because I could not go any- 
where else.' " 



John Qiiincy Adams. 159 

" 'And this,' said the Count, 'was all that he had to say in 
justification of his going into Spain and Portugal. And now 
he may intend to turn against us from the very same want of 
any other place where to go.' " 

In a short time after this curious conversation occurred, 
Napoleon had "turned against Russia," and the grand French 
army lay buried under northern snows, while he reached the 
end of his " going " at St. Helena. 

The "last war" between England and America had mean- 
while gone on its checkered way. The Americans had met 
with serious disasters on land, but had won some signal naval 
victories over their powerful foe. Both peoples were tired and 
disgusted with the war. 

On August 7, 1814, eight commissioners met in Ghent to. 
negotiate a treaty of peace between the two countries. Five 
of the party were Americans. One of these was John Quincy 
Adams. 

It is impossible to give more than a hasty glance at this 
most interesting episode in American history. Some months 
were consumed, for the most part, in angry bickerings. There 
was a great deal of ill feeling, of arrogant bearing, and enor- 
mous demand on the English side, met, on the American, by 
rritating retort and obstinate temper. 

But the altercations between the two parties were mildness 
itself when compared with the Americans' dissensions among 
themselves. Here they could give a loose rein to their feel- 
ings, and their endless disputes over minor matters would have 
been amusing had not such great issues been at stake. 

On these, happily, the five commissioners were, in the main, 
agreed ; and they were thus enabled to present a tolerably 
united front to their opponents. 

To each party the other probably seemed intolerably grasp- 
ing and aggravating. Mr. Adams, with all his high spirit and 



i6o Our Presidents. 



resolution, almost despaired at times of coming to any tolerable 
agreement. He who never said what he did not mean, avowed 
" that he would cheerfully give his life for a peace whose basis 
should be the state of affairs before the war." 

But at the last moment things brightened. Matters began 
to look threatening between England, Russia and Prussia. In 
this critical condition of things, Lord Castlereagli did not want 
a war with America on his hands. The English commissioners 
receded from the ground they had so stubbornly held. They 
were officially advised to come to terms. The result was, 
after the long verbal battle, the Treaty of Ghent. 

America was jubilant over its provisions. What England 
thought of them was perhaps expressed by the declaration of 
the Marquis of Wellesley in the House of Lords. He declared 
that, " in his opinion, the American commissioners had shown 
a most astonishing superiority over the British during the whole 
of the correspondence." 

Mr. Adams certainly had a wonderful good fortune in wit- 
nessing great historic events. After the Treaty of Ghent he 
v.'ent to Paris. He was present at the return of Napoleon from 
Elba. He beheld a great part of the scenes of the " hundred 
days." 

At this period he was joined by Mrs. Adams and her young 
son. She had shown remarkable courage and self-command in 
making the long journey from St. Petersburg to Paris. She 
had encountered various perils, as her route lay through coun- 
tries full of political tumult and preparing for fresh battles. 
Her womanly heroism during this trying journey was the more 
remarkable as her health was always delicate. 

When Mr. Adams returned to London on May 26th, a com- 
mission was awaiting him. He was appointed Envoy Extraor- 
dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to England. Washington's 
prophesy regarding young Adams was now fulfilled. He 



John Qiiincy A Jams. i6l 

had reached "the highest rank in the American diplomatic 
service." 

He remained in England more than two years. He does 
not seem, any more than his father before him, greatly to have 
enjoyed his elevation. There was comparatively little to 
occupy him. The Court of St. James was, throughout the 
Georgian era, a rather chilling atmosphere for an American 
minister. This one's meagre salary, too, was the source of 
constant discomfort and annoyance. 

When, on June 15, 1817, John Quincy Adams sailed from 
Covves, he had closed his long and honorable diplomatic 
career. He was still in the prime of life, close to his half 
century. But when, that summer day, the English shores 
faded from his sight, he had looked on them for the last time. 
Henceforward his life-work was to be in his native land. He 
returned now to a new post. He had been appointed Secretary 
of State in the cabinet of James Monroe. 

The patriotic soul of John Quincy Adams was profoundly 
stirred by the aspect of the national capital. It must have 
been an ugly, dreary, most uncomfortable residence for the first 
three decades of its existence. What appearance it presented 
to the new Secretary of State, after his long familiarity with the 
splendid capitals of Europe, can best be told in his own words : 
" It is impossible," he writes, " for me to describe to you my 
feelings on entering this miserable desert, this scene of desola- 
tion and horror. My anticipations were almost infinitely short 
of the reality." 

But the Secretary of State settled down to his work with 
his inveterate doggedness. So far as domestic affairs were 
concerned, Monroe's administration rolled its smooth course 
almost to the end, when it was shaken by personal rival- 
ries. The party animosities which had marked the opening; 
years of the century disappeared after the Treaty of Ghent. 
11 



1 62 Our Presidents. 



Neither Federalists nor Republicans had now any great domes- 
tic grievances or any widely divergent policies. With our 
foreign relations it was different. There was the great problem 
of South American independence and our own attitude toward 
the revolted Colonies in the face of exasperated Spain and dis- 
affected Europe; there were the burning questions of Florida, 
of the Louisiana boundary, and of General Jackson's unparal- 
leled proceedings on Spanish territory, all handling in their 
settlement the most adroit handling, the most consummate 
statesmanship. These momentous affairs fell within Mr. 
Adams's department. 

That was the day, too, of the Holy Alliance. There were 
strong grounds for fear lest the members of that formidable 
power should take it upon themselves to suppress the nascent 
South American Republics. The monarchical and religious 
prejudices of the Alliance would inevitably cause it to side 
strongly with Spain against her former Colonies. 

All the great European powers were, at this juncture, under- 
going the conservative reaction which had followed the French 
Revolution. Great historical events, among them the rising of 
Greece, appealed strongly to the sympathies of America, and 
were liable to produce demonstrations which might, in the sensi- 
tive condition of the times, embroil us with foreign powers, 
Mr. Adams had to guard rigidly against this possibility. He 
took the ground and strenuously maintained it, that " America 
should keep wholly out of European politics." Not even when 
it came to entering into a league with England for the suppres- 
sion of the slave-trade, would he yield an inch. 

Then Mr. Adams had also to encounter the rivalries, the 
jealousies, the enmities, of members of the cabinet or of congress. 
This is not, of course, the place to enter into the history of the 
intrigues of that time. They involved the intensest personal 
rivalries and ambitions. 



John Qiiincy Adams. 163 

Several of the most prominent and popular American states- 
men were eager to succeed Monroe in the Presidency. It had 
hitherto been the practice to award the high prize to the Secre- 
tary of State. 

This fact, no doubt, explains much of the bitter opposition 
which John Quincy Adams encountered during the Monroe 
administration. He bore it with invincible courage, but his 
feelings were deeply pained and outraged. While his conduct 
may have won the respect of his political rivals, it was not likely 
to conciliate them. But Mr. Adams was seldom careful to 
placate people. He had too inflexible a nature, too belligerent 
a temper to court popularity. 

He asserted that he should do " absolutely nothing " to 
secure the Presidency. There was something morally sublime 
in this position. He held to it through tremendous tempta- 
tions, for he was not, like Washington, indifferent to the office. 

But despite intrigues and machinations, despite the wide 
popularity and miHtary fame of his strongest rival, the proud, 
frigid, and rather repellent New Englander was elected Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

At his inauguration, March 4, 1825, he wore a black suit, 
wholly of American manufacture. Washington had set that 
example. 

When the ceremony was over, his rival. General Jackson, 
hastened to cordially greet the new President. One regrets to 
add that this forms the last courtesy on record between the 
two. 

John Quincy Adams's administration opened with the close 
of the first quarter of our century. The Republic, which had at 
its birth so many new problems to face, and which had been so 
vast an experiment on the part of the statesmen who organized 
the government, had by this time won her place and her name 
among the family of nations. 



164 Our Preside/its. 



America was at peace with all the world. With her growing 
strength and prosperity, she began to have a larger prescience 
of the future that awaited her. Amid leisure and freedom she 
could turn her attention to the development of her great inter- 
nal resources. It was thirty-six years since the ship of state 
first moved out on the untried seas. The waters, so stormy 
then, Avere peaceful now,, and the pilot who stood at the helm 
and looked out on the course with calm, watchful eyes, was 
brave, experienced and tireless. 

But though the promise was outv.-ardly so fair, the elements 
of discord were secretly at Avork, almost from the moment of 
Mr. Adams's installation. No stone was left unturned by his 
political opponents to secure the next presidential election for 
that impetuous western soldier who had such a hold of the 
popular imagination. General Jackson's friends were shrewd, 
keen, alert. They were versed in political strategy. They knew 
how to handle the masses, to bend events to the accomplish- 
ment of their plans. The man at the head of the nation, living 
his simple, laborious life, rising before daj^break, " often kindling 
his fire with his own hands," his greatest indulgence those long 
swims in the Potomac which would have left many a stalwart 
youth far behind, devoting the long hours of the day and much 
of the night to strenuous labors, his thoughts intent on plans for 
internal improvements, his mind occupied with the large prob- 
lems of the statesman and patriot, had little time or taste for 
entering into the lists v/ith his political opponents. 

They had the field during these years to themselves. The 
President certainly played into their hands. His enemies were 
not magnanimous. Men seldom are in the heat of political 
combat. The contest was largely a personal one. With the 
kind of forces arrayed against him, Mr. Adams was placed at 
singular disadvantage. But he would not conciliate a friend or 
placate a foe to win a second term of presidency. This unbend- 



John Qiiiiuy Adams. 165 

ing attitude did not liave its source in indifference, for he would 
have found great satisfaction in the popular approval which 
expressed itself in a re-election. 

But he refused to emplo)'^ the least of the patronage at his 
disposal to win a single vote. Such a resolve, such an attitude, 
were worthy of the highest honor. 

It seems a pity that a man so good and great should have 
been so little understood, a double pity that much which was 
frigid, brusque, forbidding, in his attitude, speech and manner, 
should have explained, if it did not justify, the dislike which he 
inspired. 

Mr. Adams did not have a magnetic personality. He was 
singularly lacking in those qualities which win a loyal and 
devoted following. He often repelled those with whom he was 
brought into social relations. They said he carried with him " the 
chilling atmosphere of an iceberg. " When he did a kindly thing, 
it was not oftenest with the grace that lent an added charm 
to the deed. He certainly never adopted the king's maxim, 
that "each man should retire happy from his presence." No 
doubt many left the President soured, disappointed, repelled. 

Yet, despite these blemishes, he must have been, with his 
rare intellectual gifts, and his rich stores of information, a de- 
lightful companion. It was a great pleasure to hear him con- 
verse. Men of his own tastes, especially those who composed 
his cabinet, greatly enjoyed his society, and honored the integ- 
rity and purity of his character, 

Mrs. Adams was a lady of imposing presence and agreeable 
social manners. She presided with grace and dignity at the 
White House, and her influence must have ameliorated the im- 
pression made by her husband's coldness and reserve. 

The passion and virulence of the campaign of 1828, repeated 
in some of its aspects that of 1801. It closed with the election 
of Andrew Jackson to the presidency. 



1 66 Our Presidents. 



The younger Adams bore his disappointment — it must have 
been a severe one — with more philosophy than the elder had 
done. He acted his part with dignity in his successor's inaug- 
ural, and returned to the ancestral home at Quincy. With his 
passion for work, his dread of long leisures and the slow rust- 
ing of mental faculties, he set about preparing a memoir of his 
father, and also projected a history of the United States. The 
man of sixty-two had at that time little prescience that the most 
glorious part of his life was yet to come. 

In 1830, when Plymouth district first proposed sending Mr. 
Adams to Congress, it was feared lest an ex-President would 
regard the office as too great a contrast with his former one. 
This doubt was expressed to Mr. Adams. The high character 
and true patriotism of the man showed themselves in his 
reply : " No person could be degraded by serving the people in 
Congress. Nor, in my opinion, would an ex-President of the 
United States be degraded by serving as a selectman of his 
town, if thereto elected." 

The people of New England, or a large section of them, 
always understood John Quincy Adams's real quality. The 
Plymouth district sent him by a large vote to Congress, and 
from that time until his death, he represented that region. 

Here again, there is only opportunity for a glance at a career 
and a figure whose moral grandeur has hardly been surpassed 
by any in American history. 

Yet it is not a picturesque figure ; it is that of a " short, 
bald, elderly man, with strong, rugged features, and eyes more 
or less inflamed." He had none of the graces of oratory, and 
his high shrill voice had no rich, deep tones to allure the ear 
and find their way to the heart. But with all these defects the 
member from Massachusetts was sure to have a large, interested 
audience when he spoke. 

He took his seat in Congress in December, 1831. He had 



John Qiiimy Adams, 167 

been elected by the " National Republican," soon to be known 
as the " Whig Party." 

He at once characteristically declared that " he would be 
bound by no partisan connection, but would in every case act 
independently. " 

His position in the Twenty-second Congress was unprece- 
dented. E\ ery member must have regarded the ex-President 
with peculiar interest ; but he himself records that " he experi- 
enced no annoyance on account of his descent in official life." 

In a little while the nullification storm swept through Con- 
gress. Mr. Adams took a most intrepid attitude at this crisis, 
and maintained it through all the excitement. When the atmos- 
phere cleared at last, it found him much disgusted with the con- 
cessions which the government had made in the interests of peace. 

Years before, Mr. Adams had proved himself one of Jack- 
son's stanchest defenders. But the strongest antipathy, both 
political and personal, now existed between the statesman and 
the soldier. 

But it was in his position regarding slavery that Mr. Adams 
was to prove himself a very gladiator. This tremendous ques- 
tion, coming to the front when the annexation of Texas began 
to be talked of, aroused all the moral and intellectual forces of 
the New Englander. 

He brought to support his arguments, his vast stores of 
knowledge, his ])itiless invective, his scathing satire, and more 
than all these, his indomitable physical and moral courage. 

To this portion of his career, so full of thrilling interest to 
the biographer, a volume could do scant justice, while a few 
lines must include all that can be said here. 

The leader of that forlorn hope fronted everywhere immense 
odds arrayed against him. They were in the halls of Congress ; 
in the Boston that he loved; in the country that, giving 
him herhighest honors, had never been fond of him. 



1 68 Our Presidents. 



How gloriously he bore himself through those dozen years, 
espousing the cause of the wronged and helpless in the face of 
the proud and powerful ; what fiery opposition, what un- 
bounded rage, he encountered, in that long, memorable crusade ; 
what a great figure he makes standing in calm, solitary 
grandeur, while the storms beat about him, must be left for an 
ampler record than this. 

It seemed as though he bore a charmed life. The burdens 
he carried, the labors he went through, might well have ex- 
hausted the strong brain and the steady pulses of youth : yet, 
year after year, the old man, "with his shrill voice and his 
shaking hand," was always at his post, always ready for the fray, 
never coming out of it vanquished ! 

The spectacle of these tireless labors, of this great ability, 
of this flawless courage and spotless integrity, could not fail 
to win the respect of his most exasperated enemies ; and that 
he did exasperate them, often with deliberate intent, and almost 
beyond the power of endurance, cannot be denied. 

Yet this atmosphere of conflict stimulated all his mental and 
moral energies as no softer one could have done. John Quincy 
Adams was of the old Puritan strain. He had its moral hero- 
ism, its devout temper, its invincible courage. One cannot read 
of him without thinking of Oliver Cromwell and the breed of 
heroes about him. 

Their inmost spirit breathes in the words which Mr. Adams 
wrote when surrounded by all the pomp and glory of the Rus- 
sian court. '' It is in the midst of splendors and magnificence 
that the heart needs most to be reminded of its vanities, and 
that the aid of heaven is most earnestly to be invoked." 

It was his habit too, amid all his varied, absorbing duties, to 
read five chapters a day in the Bible. 

Mr. Adams had, too, the deep, concentrated domestic af- 
fections which were a part of the Puritan temperament. He 



John Qjtiiiiy Adams. 169 

was a devoted husband and father, though he inclined, at le:ist 
in theory, to that old ideal of parental authority which belonged 
to a sterner generation. But he admits that Mrs. Adams did 
not share his views in this respect. 

Beneath all the coldness and reserve of the Puritan tempera- 
ment lay deep springs of freshness and poetry in this man's nature. 
They sometimes broke through all reserves, as they did on that 
memorable occasion when Mr. Adams visited the Hague, in 
June, 1 8 14, on his way to join the mission at Ghent. 

He had been at the Hague in his early youth, and on his 
return to the familiar scenes, the old vivid memories surprised 
him into words full of the strongest emotion : 

"It was a confusion of recollections so various, so tender, so 
melancholy, so delicious, so painful ; a mixture so heterogeneous, 
and yet altogether so sweet, that if I had been alone I am sure 
I should have melted into tears." 

Mr. Adams's health broke very slowly. He had begun a 
diary, a mere boy in 1779. He made entries more or less fre- 
quent until 1 795. At this time he set vigorously about the record 
and wrote regularly during the rest of his life. 

The diary, which forms a vivid portraiture of the man and 
his times, contains a significant entry as early as March 25, 
1844. " Physical disability must soon put a stop to this diary. " 

He had then been at work on it half a century. He goes on 
to speak of his " rising at four, of his smarting eyes and shak- 
ing hands." 

One crowning triumph still remained for him. " The in- 
famous gag-rule which he had long fought in Congress was 
suppressed." In recording this fact Mr. Adams breaks out into 
a strain which reminds one of the solemn joy of the Psalmist: 

" Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God." 

There were no signs of mental failure in the old man when 
the paralysis struc khim in Boston, November 19, 1846. But the 



170 Our Presidents. 



warrior would not lay off his armor. Three months later he 
went to Washington, amid whose summer-heats he had spent 
part of his waning strength. It is pleasant to write that when 
he appeared on the scene of his many battles, all the members 
rose together. Various kindly courtesies, which marked the 
feeling of the House, were shown him. Afterward he was 
punctually at his post, though he spoke only once. 

The last words in his diary were written to his son, Charles 
Adams, January i, 1848, and they have in them the ring of all 
the writer's battling, triumphant years : 

" A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair." 

Mr. Adams was in his seat in Congress February 21, 1848. 
" He rose on the floor, with a paper in his hand, to address the 
Speaker, when he suddenly fell forward insensible. Paralysis 
had seized him again. He was conveyed to the hall of the 
rotunda, and then to the Speaker's room." 

When he regained consciousness he said calmly, " This is 
the end of earth." Then he added, " I am content." 

His invalid wife and his family were summoned to his side. 
But the long day's work was done. The time had come for rest. 
On the evening of February 23d he died quietly. 

They buried him under the portal of the church at Quincy, 
beside his grand old father and his noble mother. 






cr^^^ / 




-^ r /YJ-t^-r 



ANDREW JACKSON. 

In October, 1788, there came a day which was full of ex- 
citement and joy in the wild, beautiful valley of the Cumberland. 
In Nashville, the small western settlement, at the back door of 
civilization, the air was full of hospitality, of welcoming sounds 
and happy greetings. For that day — just a hundred years ago, 
you must remember — there rode out from the long, rough wil- 
derness-trail a procession of emigrants, " nearly a liundred in 
number." No wonder the little hamlet, with its cabins and 
block-houses, went wild for joy over this reinforcement to its 
scanty population. Nashville was only nine years old at that 
time. The American pioneers had passed over the mighty walls 
of the Cumberland mountains, and settled down on the site 
which the French trappers and traders had deserted a little 
while before. But the white man held that far frontier at his 
peril. The wilderness all about him swarmed with savages — 
the strongest and bravest of the half-conquered tribes. The 
strife was deadly between the two races. Of course, the white 
one was sure, in the long run, to win. But for years the settlers 
made their clearings and reaped their harvest, with their tireless, 
remorseless foe always on the alert. The terrible war-whoop 
haunted their dreams. The days were tense with unceasing 
watch and ward. Even the light, swift tread of wild creatures 
in the woods thrilled the trained nerves of the settlers with 
sudden fear. 

All this happened in that old Nashville of a hundred years 
ago, and yet, who knows ! It is just possible that somewhere 
on the planet, a pair of eyes still peer out dimly on the day-light, 



1/2 Our Presidents. 



which opened for the first time on that far away morning when 
the tired cavalcade rode into Nashville ! 

It had come with its guides, its women and its children, 
from Jonesboro', a hundred and eighty-three miles to the east. 
It was a wonder that one had lived to tell the tale. The dark, 
lonely mountain-passes were haunted by hostile savages. The 
utmost vigilance and courage had alone succeeded in bringing 
the train over the long, perilous ways. 

It brought stirring news to Nashville. The States, one after 
another, had accepted the new Constitution, and the govern- 
ment would now be organized, George Washington was certain 
to be America's first President. One almost seems to hear, 
across a century, the echo of the joyful shouts with which the 
little pioneer settlement heard these tidings. 

In the emigrant train rode a professional party which must 
have attracted attention at once. It was composed of a clerk, 
a judge, and several young lawyers. One of these was the 
newly appointed solicitor, or public prosecutor, for the district. 
He is the subject of this brief biography. 

Andrew Jackson was twenty-two years old on that October 
morning, when he rode into Nashville. He was born in Union 
County, close to the boundary lines between the Provinces of 
North and South Carolina, on March 15, 1767. All sad for- 
tunes darkened about his birth. Before that happened, his 
father had sickened and died suddenly. The family were still 
strangers in the New World. They had been here only about 
two years. They were of Scotch lineage from North Ireland. 
No doubt poverty drove the little household across the seas 
from Carrickfergus to Charleston. These people were sturdy 
and honest. Radical whigs, stanch Presbyterians, they came 
with relatives and neighbors to seek a larger foothold, to find a 
fairer chance on the new continent — the father, Andrew Jack- 
son, and his wife, Elizabeth, and their two little boys. They 



Andrew Jackson. 1 7' 



did not lose any time at C'harleston. With true Scotch grit 
they faced their fate at once, and set out for the Waxhavv settle- 
ment, a hundred and sixty miles to the north-west, where they 
would find many faces of their kindred and countrymen. Here, 
on " Twelve Mile Creek," a branch of the Catawba, in the 
midst of the pine wilderness, a clearing was made, a log-house 
built. But in the spring of 1767, the rude home was deserted, 
and the family never returned to it. Mrs. Jackson was a widow 
and the boys were fatherless. 

It was hard lines for that brave mother. She must have 
greeted the birth of her last boy with fresh tears of her 
widowhood. He was born under the roof of her sister's hus- 
band, but Andrew was only three weeks old when his mother 
carried him to the home of Mr. Crawford, another brother-in- 
law, with whom she had come to America. He was a man of 
some property. The widow was sure to be of service in his 
large family, with his feeble wife. And these were the begin- 
nings of Andrew Jackson. 

After all, they were not the worst ones. A tender, devoted 
mother watched over his childhood. No doubt he gave her 
plenty of trouble and anxiety — rash, wild, headstrong, as he 
must have been — generous, affectionate, lovable, too. For there 
was to be in him all his life, two different natures, each so posi- 
tive, powerful, insistent, that it seemed the whole of him when 
it got the mastery. This made Andrew Jackson an insoluble 
problem to many of his contemporaries. It has made him ever 
since a puzzle to the world. He could not have failed to show 
something of this double character even during the first decade 
of his life. 

In that old time, in that thinly-settled region, he had small 
opportunities for study. Perhaps these were, however, about 
equal to George Washington's. Andrew went to an " old field 
school-house," and learned " to read, to write, to cast accounts." 



174 Our Presidents. 



It is extremely doubtful whether any books or any tutors 
could have made a scholar of him. His genius was one of 
action. 

At last the War of the Revolution broke into the Waxhaws. 
Hugh Jackson, the eldest of the two brothers, and a mere strip- 
ling, joined the militia, did his part in the Battle of Stono, and 
died of exhaustion afterward. So the war came to Andrew's 
heart before it was at his door. 

On May 29, 1780, the terrible Tarleton, with his three hun- 
dred horsemen, burst upon the militia in the Waxhaw settle- 
ment. The details of the battle are too sickening to dwell on. 
The militia, frightfully mangled, were carried to the old " log 
meeting-house," where the women and boys, Mrs. Jackson and 
her sons among the foremost, came to tend them. Here the 
boy of thirteen had war in its most appalling form brought under 
his keen, all-observant eyes. He never forgot those days ; 
indeed, he had one of those tenacious natures which never forgot 
anything that touched his heart or roused his passions. 

And now havoc overran that fair world of tlie Carolinas. 
Nowhere else did the Revolution take on so fierce, so brutal, so 
fiendish a form. Men seemed to lose their manhood amid the 
fierce passions and cruel deeds of the long strife on the wild 
southern border. And a tall, yellow-complexioned, lank-vis- 
aged boy, with fiery blue eyes, was in the midst of the dreadful 
scenes. The iron entered his soul, and at last he took his part 
in the work. On August 16, 1780, the defeat of General Gates 
struck dismay and terror to the heart of the South. In the 
early autumn all the inhabitants of the Waxhaws who were not 
in the field, were again in panic-stricken flight, for news had 
come of Cornwallis' advance with those British troops at whose 
name every man, woman and child in the Carolinas had learned 
to shudder. 

Mrs. Jackson and her sons had to make their wild flight 



Andrew Jackson. i 75 



with tlie others. Amid scenes like these Andrew Jackson's boy- 
hood was nurtured. He was now at that formative period of 
his life when impressions are most vivid and lasting. No doubt 
the experiences of this time gave a permanent trend to his 
character. One cannot wonder that his young, passionate soul 
was fired with a deadly hatred of British soldiers. 

A little incident perfectly illustrates the boy's temper at this 
time. He had managed to " fasten the blade of a scythe to a 
pole," and then he attacked the weeds about the house, and, as 
he mowed them down with vindictive fury, he was overheard 
crying out passionately : " Oh, if I were a man, how I would 
sweep down the British with my grass-blade." 

Before the war was over, his chance came. Neither Andrew 
nor his brother enlisted in any corps, but " they joined some of 
the small parties in the neighborhood, who rode about the coun- 
try breathing vengeance on the foe." The young Jacksons had 
all sorts of adventures, hardships and hair-breadth escapes. At 
last a day came whicli must have made all their previous suffer- 
ings seem light. After a night of peril and exposure in a thicket 
where they had hidden, hunger drove the brothers in the morn- 
ing to the nearest house. This belonged to their cousin, lieu- 
tenant Crawford. They found his wife here with her young 
children. The boys had crept cautiously inside. Nobody 
dreamed of danger. But their hiding-place had been discovered. 
In a little while a party of dragoons burst into the house. It 
is difficult to realize the scene which followed. Yet it was not 
an unusual one in that year of grace in the Carolinas. The 
house was ravaged. The dragoons " dashed crockery, glass 
and furniture to pieces, emptied beds, tore clothing to rags," 
before the eyes of the scared, helpless mother and her children. 
vShe looked on with her infant in her arms. The young Jack- 
sons looked on, too, powerless to aid. But the younger was 
laying up the memory of that hour in his soul, and years later, 



• 
176 Our Presidents. 



on another field, and in another war, he was to exact the bitter 
price. 

The brothers were at last mounted on horses and rode away 
in the train of their captors. Each had been cruelly wounded 
by the leader of the dragoons. It may not have been wise to 
refuse, as they did, when he ordered them to clean his mud- 
splashed boots, but they were prisoners of war, and the rude 
command aroused all the resentment of their young, fiery, 
Celtic blood. Andrew's head and hand were deeply gashed 
by the sword of the infuriated officer. Then Robert's turn 
had come. The blow on his head prostrated and disabled 
him. 

In this condition the two were mounted on stolen horses 
and carried to Camden, forty miles away. Not a particle of 
food, not a drop of water, relieved the sufferings of that long 
ride. It appears incredible that their captors, who were men 
and not fiends, would not allow the parched boys to scoop up 
a little water when they forded the streams. 

In the inclosure at Camden, greater misery, if possible, befell. 
They had no beds ; their only food was a scanty supply of 
bread ; their wounds went undressed. The small-pox made 
its appearance among the two hundred and fifty prisoners of 
war. The cup of Andrew's misery was full, when he was sepa- 
rated from his brother, robbed of his jacket and his shoes. 

At last a gleam of humanity steals across the black picture. 
An officer of the guard, probably touched by Andrew's youth 
and misery, condescended to talk with him. Then the boy, 
with that passionate speech and manner, which was to exert 
such an immense power over the hearts of men, poured out the 
story of his wrongs and those of his fellow sufferers. The 
officer was amazed and touched. He started an investigation 
into the fare of the prisoners. The villainy of the contractors 
v/as unearthed. These, and not the military authorities, were 



Andrew Jackson. i J 7 



starving the prisoners. After the boy's talk the rations were 
improved. " The prisoners had meat and better bread." 

At last there was joy in the prison-pen, for General Greene 
had come to their rescue. He drew up his brave little army, 
twelve hundred strong, on an eminence, within a mile of Cam- 
den, and waited for his cannon, which he had outstripped in his 
rapid march. 

For six days he waited on Hobkirk's Hill. For six days the 
prisoners waited, too, full of intense, suppressed excitement. 
Their fate hung upon the little army at Hobkirk's Hill. 

At last the day of battle came. One only of the imprisoned 
Americans witnessed it. This was Andrew Jackson. He had 
secured an old razor blade, " with which he hacked out a knot 
from the fence that had been recently erected on the summit of 
the wall which surrounded the inclosure." 

With his eyes at the knot-hole, the boy watched the scene. 
The American army, confident of its strength, and not dreaming 
of a surprise from the inferior British force, lay encamped on 
Hobkirk's Hill. Lord Rawdon had planned his attack skillfully. 
The boy, peering through the knot-hole, descried the danger. 
He could not send across the intervening mile a warning shout 
that the Redcoats were close at hand. He saw the first rush 
upon the unguarded troops. Even then, unprepared as they 
were, the horsemen made a gallant rally. They dashed into 
the midst of their foes and almost carried the day. The 
breathless crowd behind the boy at the knot-hole, listened to 
his report of the battle. Their own fate hung upon it. Sud- 
denly the joyous words of victory faltered and fell, as the 
American fire slackened and receded. A little later " Greene 
was in full retreat." 

From that hour despair settled heavily upon the prisoners. 
The young Jacksons sickened with the small-pox. Robert's 
wound, never dre.ised, had not healed. But in that darkest 
12 



178 Our Presidents. 



hour help suddenly appeared. Mrs. Jackson had come from 
her home at Waxhaw to the prison at Camden. The mother 
must have pleaded passionately for her boys' release to the 
Whig captain, who held numbers of British prisoners. Negotia- 
tions were opened. At last an exchange was effected. It was 
greatly to the advantage of the enemy. The British gave up 
seven Americans for thirteen of their own soldiers. 

The mother could hardly recognize her sons. Wasted with 
hunger, wounds and disease, they came out of the Camden 
prison-pen. Robert could not stand. There was nothing to be 
done now but make the long, weary journey back to Waxhaw. 
" Mrs. Jackson rode one horse, and Robert, too ill to keep his 
seat, was held upon the other." Andrew, " bareheaded, bare- 
footed, with no jacket," dragged himself over the wilderness 
road. The party had almost reached Waxhaw when a cold rain 
burst upon them. " The boys had reached that critical period 
in small-pox when a chill usually proves fatal." In two days 
Robert was dead, and Andrew was raving in delirium. The boy 
fought his way slowly out of that long illness. When he was 
convalescent a new purpose took possession of Mrs. Jackson's 
heart. She had listened to the stories — Waxhaw was full of 
them in the summer of 1781 — of the horrors in the Charleston 
prison-ships. Other mothers, this one reflected, had sons there. 
She with two other women made the heroic resolution to set out 
together for the prison-ships and relieve, so far as was possible, 
the sufferings inside them. 

The three women started. They probably went on horse- 
back ; they reached Charleston ; they gained admission to the 
ships ; they brought stores from home, and tender messages and 
woman's precious solace and courage to the languishing inmates. 
But that splendid service cost Mrs. Jackson her life. She was 
seized with the ship-fever. " She died at the house of a rela- 
tive, ten miles from Charleston." Did she think in her last 



Andrew Jackson. 1 79 



hours of that young boy she must leave fatherless, motherless, 
homeless ? Were her dying moments gladdened with some pre- 
science of the man he was to be ? 

Andrew Jackson had not reached his fifteenth birthday when 
he found himself alone in the world. The loss of his mother 
must have been a terrible blow to him. During all his afterlife 
he spoke of her with the utmost reverence and affection. He 
missed that strong, tender influence about his young years. 
Had it lasted longer it might have softened all his manhood. 

The dearest wish of Mrs. Jackson's heart appears to have 
been, that her youngest boy should become a Presbyterian 
minister. Whether this wish was based on anything she saw or 
fancied in his character, can never be known now. 

But fate had another destiny in store for Andrew Jackson. 
He must have had a hard time scrambling up into youth, left 
as he was in extreme poverty. His health, too, had been 
greatly shaken by his illness and his hardships. His relatives 
do not appear to have been very helpful at this time. Whether 
this was partly his fault, or whether the orphan boy was in their 
eyes simply a "poor relation," is uncertain. Andrew was head- 
strong and hot-tempered. He went some rather wild courses 
which would have made his mother's heart ache. " He had gay 
companions with whom he raced, gambled, and occasionally 
drank." He was not above the influences of his time and envi- 
ronment. Perhaps his poverty was, after all, his best friend, for 
it did not admit of long or frequent dissipations. 

No consuming desire for study at this time braced the will 
and spurred the ambition of the boy from the Waxhaws. Yet 
in the grip of that hard poverty he was probably conscious of 
some vague, indefinable power and purpose. These may have 
been at the bottom of some of his wild courses and had some- 
thing to do with his young obstinacy and irascibility. 

Andrew tried the saddler's trade ; he worked at it for six 



I So Our Presidents. 



months, a low, malarious fever meanwhile hanging about him. 
He visited Charleston after the British evacuated the city. 
Here his young blood took fire. " He squandered his slender 
means, got into debt, gambled, lost, and at the darkest moment 
won a high wager, left the table, and from that moment never 
played again." 

There you have the stuff that was in him ! It came to his 
rescue, as Andrew Jackson rode away from Charleston after 
settling his debts. Perhaps some echo of his mother's voice 
was in the air as he passed over the long still wilderness road. 
Certainly he made up his mind that the last year had been 
wasted, and that he must turn over a new leaf. 

It was not a light resolve. Andrew Jackson never did any- 
thing with half a will. His efforts at study, for he made some 
at this time, were successful enough to encourage him to attempt 
school-teaching. But he had not found his place. 

After these trials and failures, he made up his mind to study 
law. This was about two years after the memorable ride from 
Charleston. He gathered his small means together, turned his 
back on the Waxhaws, rode to Salisbury seventy miles away, 
and entered a law office. This was just before he reached his 
eighteenth birthday. 

Young Jackson studied law here for the next two years. 
But he was never a model student. The wild, rough games of 
the age and the frontier, the horse-racing and the cock-fighting, 
still attracted him. Probably his young associates were not 
long in discovering how fierce his temper was, and how easily it 
was roused. But they must have been conscious of a strong, 
subtle attraction in this tall, thin-faced, reddish-haired young 
man, with the fierce blaze in his deep blue eyes whenever he 
was excited. They must have learned, too, that his word could be 
trusted, that there was nothing mean, cowardly, false, about him. 

About two years after he came to Salisbury, Andrew Jack- 



Andrew Jackson. l8l 



son was licensed to practice. There was no chance for the 
young lawyer in the old settlements. He sought a new field on 
the frontier. He obtained the appointment of solicitor for a 
vast district that lay far beyond the western wilderness. This 
frontier, then Washington County, is now the State of Ten- 
nessee. 

This is the way it came about that Andrew Jackson rode 
that October day of 1788, into Nashville. 

He had found his place at last. On this new, vast, unex- 
plored field his life really began. His immense energies, his 
tenacious will, his strong character, Avere sure to make their 
mark on the new life of the frontier. 

And what a varied, picturesque and exciting life it was ! Its 
story for the next few years would fill a volume, and it must be 
dismissed here with a few lines. 

Andrew Jackson became now, and continued for the rest of 
his life, "the busiest of men." During the next seven years he 
was in constant peril, as he rode from court to court through a 
wilderness infested with hostile tribes. He never knew where 
the ambushed savage lurked on his path ; he must always have 
been listening for the sharp crack of the rifle. Yet his nerves 
were a stranger to fear. 

It was well that he had such an immense love for horses, he 
was obliged to pass so much time on their backs. It was well 
that his eyes were keen, his ears alert, in the wilderness, he had 
to ride during so many days, to camp so many nights, in their 
vast solitudes. 

In a little while people began to find out that the new solici- 
tor was no ordinary character. Everybody must have had de- 
cided opinions about him. The shrewd, rough backwoodsmen 
could not have been long in perceiving that young Jackson was 
not to be trifled with. Resolute, tenacious, utterly fearless, 
friend and foe alike knew where to find him. 



i82 Our Presidents. 



Jackson's character, and all his early experience, as calcu- 
lated to make him at home in the social atmosphere and amid 
the rude life of the frontier. With his inveterate prejudices 
and his fiery temper, he was extremely liable to get into dififi- 
culties. In that day, in that place, there was but one way of 
settling quarrels among men, and that was the old mediaeval 
fashion of shooting one's antagonist, or being shot one's 
self. 

Perhaps Andrew Jackson did not enjoy a duel. Perhaps, 
in his calmer moments, he would have admitted that it was a 
barbarous custom for men to settle their quarrels by killing each 
other ; but all the same, he was ready and eager to fight to the 
death on what he regarded as sufficient provocation. His chal- 
lenges and duels, if they form a dramatic, form, also, a dark 
chapter in his history, and cannot be related here. Yet it is 
only fair to add that he no doubt was thoroughly convinced 
his antagonist was always in the wrong, that his victim always 
deserved his fate. 

Three years after young Jackson's arrival at Nashville, he 
was married to Mrs. Rachel Robards. She was the daughter 
of Colonel Donelson, the Virginia pioneer who, nine years before, 
had brought his family, including his pretty daughter, from the 
Virginia homestead to what was then the old French trading 
outpost on the Cumberland. That long journey, made by boat- 
ing on inland rivers, had been full of thrilling adventures, and 
hair-breadth escapes, and had occupied more time than it now 
takes to go around the world. Colonel Donelson, the most im- 
portant man in the settlement, had been found in the woods 
one day murdered by some cowardly assassin. His widow, left 
in very comfortable circumstances, was living in the best house 
which Nashville afforded, when the new solicitor appeared on 
the scene. He must liave regarded it as a stroke of rare good 
fortune when Mrs. Donelson consented to receive him as a 



Andrew Jackson. 183 



boarder. Here he found a home. He probably had not known 
one since his mother's death. 

Mr. and Mrs. Robards were living with Mrs. Donclson. 
Jackson could not fail to be attracted, as every one was, by the 
S])rightly talk and pleasant ways of the young wife. Many as 
were his faults, he always carried himself toward women with aa 
ideal reverence and delicacy. He seemed — this man born and 
bred on the rude Carolina frontier — to hold for all womankind, 
something of that sacred feeling with which he cherished the 
memory of his dead mother. By this time the *' black-eyed, 
black-haired Rachel," who could dance and ride with much grace, 
and had all the accomplishments which the frontier afforded, 
had discovered that she made the saddest mistake of her life 
when she gave her hand to the jealous and morose Kentuckian. 

Jackson must have been a witness of the treatment which 
Mrs. Robards underwent beneath her mother's roof. All his 
chivalric feeling for woman was aroused in the young wife's 
behalf, and the husband's strong jealousy soon flamed out. It 
is not pleasant to dwell on this painful affair. The angry 
husband left his wife for a time, and when his passionate tem- 
per had a chance to cool, and he was about to return, she, the 
gentlest and kindliest of women, resolved to brave all the dangers 
of a journey through the wilderness to Natchez, rather than 
live with him again. 

The enraged husband now applied to the Virginia legisla- 
ture for a divorce, and though his relatives warmly espoused 
the cause of his wife, did his best to blacken her good name. 

Jackson had returned to Nashville after seeing the little 
party through the dangerous wilderness, and when he learned 
that the divorce was granted, at once hastened to Natchez and 
offered his hand to Mrs. Robards, and they were married. 

The union, preceded by these painful circumstances, 
proved a singularly happy one. Jackson's domestic qualities 



184 Our Presidents. 



were a part of his attractive side. The iron-souled man who 
could be so hard and remorseless, was always gentle and tender 
in his home. So far as she herself was concerned, his wife 
never heard an unkind word from his lips. 

It must have been an unspeakable satisfaction to Andrew 
Jackson, after his lonely, poverty-stricken youth, and his hand- 
to-hand battle with fortune, to have a home of his own, and the 
most devoted of wives to preside over it. 

Across this happiness, however, swept, after two years, a 
shadow. The Jacksons learned that they had wedded under 
a mistake ! The Virginia court had not consummated the 
divorce. It had been at last obtained in the Kentucky courts. 

The news must have been a thunderbolt, especially to Mrs. 
Jackson. Everything possible was done to mend matters. The 
pair were promptly re-married. 

This unfortunate affair, though it never clouded the do- 
mestic atmosphere, was the source of much later unhappiness. 
There was no subject on which, for the sake of the woman who 
bore his name, Andrew Jackson was so sensitive. It was the 
immediate cause of the most deadly animosities of his life. It 
gave his prejudices a wrong trend. And when these were 
appealed to, in cases which he fancied bore an analogy to his 
own, he showed himself blind, obstinate and implacable. 

Mrs. Jackson had to suffer very keenly when her husband 
had become a great man, and his political opponents made the 
most and worst of the circumstances of his marriage. 

In June, 1796, Tennessee, after serious opposition, was ad- 
mitted to the Union, and Andrew Jackson was elected to rep- 
resent her in Congress. He was tv/enty-nine years of age at 
that time. He mounted his best horse and set out upon a 
journey of eight hundred miles to Philadelphia, the first Rep- 
resentative of Tennessee in the Congress of the United States. 

This was his " first visit to any center of civilization." The 



Andrew Jackson. 185 



Representative of the now State was described by one who saw 
iiiin at that time as " a tall, lank, uncouth looking personage, 
wich long locks of liair hanging over his face, and a queue down 
his back tied in an eel-skin." 

But, however he may have been dressed, the new member 
was not abashed by the presence of his accomplished colleagues. 
He voted against the address which Congress had prepared for 
General Washington at the close of his presidential career. The 
young lawyer from the wilds of Tennessee would not be de- 
terred from expressing his convictions by any great name, by 
any splendid services. 

He made a few speeches in Congress, in which he brought 
forward certain claims of his State " growing out of Indian 
wars " on her territory. He made the long journey home to 
find his ])opularity enhanced, and in the following autumn Ten- 
nessee sent him to the Senate. Pie had no opportunity to make 
a record there. But he satisfied his constituents, who, when he 
again returned to them, elected him " Judge of the Supreme 
Court, with a salary of six hundred dollars a year." The Gov- 
ernor had little more. 

He was not yet thirty-two years old — Member of Congress, 
Senator, Judge of the Supreme Court ! Certainly honors had 
been heaped upon his young manhood. 

Andrew Jackson's life, during the closing years of the eigh- 
teenth century and the opening of the nineteenth, abounds with 
many striking incidents whicli would have their place in a large 
biography. The fierce feud with Governor Sevier, the terrible 
duel v/ith Charles Dickinson, in which the latter lost his life, 
belong to this period. 

At this distance of time, in another age, and with another 
code of morals and manners, it is difficult to conceive of the 
flaming passions, and the stern, prompt retaliations of the old 
South-Western border. 



1 86 Our Presidents. 



Even in those stormy times, and among those fiery spirits, 
Andrew Jackson was conspicuous for his fierce temper. But 
he had then and always some rare personal power to draw out 
and retain the affections of men. 

At that time, in that place, probably nobody was surprised 
when he resolved to combine his judgeship with store-keeping. 
He bought goods in the Philadelphia market and transported 
them by boats and wagons down the rivers and through the 
wilderness. 

For a while things went prosperously, but in 1797 the Bank 
of England stopped payment. The effect of this reached even 
to the store of the judge-merchant in the Cumberland Valley. 
Jackson's property consisted largely in real estate, but he had 
indorsed heavily for one of his acquaintances who failed at this 
time. Jackson had to meet the notes, and this involved the sale 
of his plantation at Hunter's Hill, thirteen miles below Nash- 
ville. His honor was without a flaw. " He resigned his judge- 
ship, paid off his debts, and removed to a place two miles dis- 
tant which was called the Hermitage." It was to become a 
historic name, although at the time he went there to live, there 
was only a log-house upon the land. 

But the business anxieties and troubles of this time made an 
indelible impression upon Andrew Jackson. He conceived a 
violent prejudice against "banks, banking and paper money." 
He had faith only in " cash dealings and hard money," and cir- 
cumstances were fated to make Andrew Jackson's opinion of 
immense consequence for good or evil to millions of his fellow 
creatures. 

He now set up business " in a block-house at Clover Bot- 
tom, seven miles above Nashville." Here the former Congress- 
man and Judge displayed much business shrewdness and energy. 
He won a reputation not only throughout Tennessee but in far 
eastern cities for his ability and probity. 



Andrew Jackson. 187 



For several years of the closing and opening centuries, 
Andrew Jackson led his busy, restless, intense life, between 
Clover Bottom and the Hermitage. Mrs. Jackson was the capa- 
ble, hospitable mistress of the latter. The little, low-roofed 
house overflowed with good cheer, and was always crowded 
with guests. One fancies the owner sitting in the chimney- 
corner, a tall, pale, thin man, kindly and patient with all 
humble, helpless things, with weak women and little children, 
yet with relentless will and volcanic passions pent up in him. 
One wonders if Mrs. Jackson, that kindly-souled, soft-hearted 
woman, ever stood in fear of him, or if the children of the large 
Donelson connection did, as they sported and romped about 
him. 

Here Aaron Burr came two or three times to be a guest 
at the Hermitage, and take all hearts captive with the indescrib- 
able charm of his presence and manner. History has had a 
good deal to say about those visits. 

On June 12, 181 2, war was declared between the United 
States and England. The news reached Nashville, and Jack- 
son, who in 1 80 1 had been appointed Major-general of the Ten- 
nessee militia, promptly offered his services and those of twenty- 
five hundred volunteers of his division to the Government. His 
hour had struck now. 

The offer was accepted, though Madison's administration 
had an account against him in the Aaron Burr business. 

Jackson showed his mettle at once. It was severely tried at 
the beginning of the campaign. The General and his small 
army burned to atone by Southern conquests for the disasters 
which the Americans had encountered at the North. But he 
was hampered and defeated on all sides by the authorities at 
Washington. 

His forces marched, full of ardor, to Natchez. Here he 
was thunderstruck at receiving an order to disband his troops. 



Our Presidents. 



The lion was roused now ; he had ample provocation. Jack- 
son resolved on the spot that no human power should force him 
to disband the brave troops v/ho had marched with him through 
the wilderness. 

The men " were without pay, without means of transport, 
without provision for the sick." 

The General took upon himself all the responsibilities of the 
march home. The experiences of that time had fruitful results. 
Jackson learned to take matters into his own hands and to act, 
when the pinch came, utterly regardless of orders from his 
superiors. 

During the return the soldiers also learned to know their 
General. Many of them had been reluctant to enter the service 
under him. He had the reputation in Nashville of a fierce, 
hard, passionate man. The high-spirited volunteers dreaded 
the outbreaks of that terrible temper. They discovered now 
how generous, how thoughtful, how patient, their commander 
could be. He understood by instinct how to manage those 
fiery spirits, to rouse their enthusiasm, to win their love. 

During this march Jackson earned the name of " Old 
Hickory." Every soldier's instinct seized this homely appella- 
tion, which was one of those nicknames that go straight as an 
arrow to the mark. It clung to Andrew Jackson for the rest of 
his life. It was worth more to him than any victorious laurels. 

Jackson's conduct was highly applauded at Nashville, and 
the Government was at last forced to approve it. 

The affair with the Benton s followed soon after. At the 
beginning Jackson showed remarkable forbearance ; but under 
continued provocation, his temper burst all bounds, and the old 
friendship went down in the feud. Those who desire can read 
elsewhere the details of the miserable duel, and apportion the 
blame of the different actors. 

It was Jessie Benton's pi.stol which shattered the General's 



Andreiv Jackson. 189 



arm. The surgeons, all but one, decided that it must be 
amputated. 

" I'll keep my arm," said the sufferer, in his grim, resolute 
fashion, as he lay utterly prostrated with his lacerated shoulder 
and his loss of blood. He kept his ann and the ball remained 
in it twenty years. 

The tidings of the massacre at Fort Minis spread through 
the Northern country at the very moment when America was 
holding its breath over the news from Europe and the dark 
close of Napoleon's day. 

White men, women and children had been tortured, 
butchered, scalped, on the last day but one of that old summer 
of 1813. The fort, "a strong stockade of two enclosures, at 
the junction of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers," had been 
surprised by the Creeks. A terrible struggle ensued ; but when 
that August day's work was done, " four hundred corpses lay 
in the wooden fort." 

Andrew Jackson, lying on his sick bed at Nashville, learned 
the horrible story. The pain with which he rose, the weakness 
and agony amid which he set out for the field, form a part of 
the history of that invincible will. 

All this suffering, too, he must have bitterly remembered, 
was the price of his own folly. 

For a while all went well with the troops, as they marched 
through the pleasant autumn weather. But after a time the 
General's stout heart began to quail. " He did not fear the 
Creeks, but he feared starvation." There were all sorts of 
delays in forwarding provisions through the wild, half explored 
country. Jackson suffered agonies of anxiety. But he would 
not return. He faced the terrible specter of famine as he kept 
on with his scant supplies, until his troops reached the banks of 
the Coosa. Here a battle betv/een the v/hites and the Creeks 
was fought. Two hundred Indians were killed. The women 



19^ Our Presidents. 



and children were brought to the General's camp. Among 
these prisoners of war was an infant found in the arms of its 
dead mother. The squaws refused to suckle the child. Jack- 
son gazed on it. The stern, tender heart was touched. He 
must have remembered his own lonely, orphaned boyhood. 
There was a little brown sugar among the scant stores of the 
General's tent : he mixed this with water, fed the child and 
saved his life. It was afterwards taken to the Hermitage and 
the " squaw's baby " was brought up like a son under the roof 
of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. 

And the man who did this for the wild Indian child, could 
be as hard and pitiless as fate ! He was that when he replied 
at Fort Strother, the fortified camp on the Coosa, to all appeals 
to spare poor young Wood's life : " I am sorry for his parents, 
but the boy is a mutineer and must die." 

The details of this sad tragedy cannot be fully related. 
When it happened, John Wood v.^as not yet eighteen ; he had 
been only a month in service ; he knew nothing of military life. 
One cold, rainy, winter morning he was on guard. " Wet, 
chilled, hungry, he obtained permission to go to his tent for a 
blanket." While he was hastily devouring his breakfast, he was 
shamefully insulted by one of the officers. Seventeen is not a 
wise age. John's hot temper leaped out in speech and act. 

The General came, in one of his bhnd rages, upon the 
scene. The boy, at his orders, was put in irons. A little later 
poor John Wood, " who knew nothing of military life, who had 
been but a month in service," was tried for mutiny. " Sitting 
upon a log in the forest, he was condemned to die." 

The General was inexorable. The boy was executed in 
presence of the whole army. 

This injustice forms one of the darkest pages in Andrew 
Jackson's history. 

No doubt he said to himself that a stern example was 



Andrew Jackson. 1 91 



needed. His soul had been vexed, liis patience exhausted by 
frequent mutiny among the troops. It was not surprising. 
The unused soldiers were homesick and starving in the wild 
Indian country. At one time their rations consisted "of a few 
crackers taken from the sick stores." Tlirough some mistake 
not one was left for the General and his staff. They were 
forced to repair to the slaughter-house to appease their hunger 
with the refuse. Jackson turned the affair into a joke. Such 
a man has in him the stuff of a born commander. 

But despite all his popularity and the force of his example, 
hunger and homesickness proved mightier. The men at last 
came to a fixed resolve to defy their General, turn their backs 
on him and start for home. Their misery made them desperate ; 
their term of service had nearly expired. But the fate of the 
southern country hung in the balance. 

General Jackson tried arguments, entreaties, promises. 
Stirring scenes took place between the irate commander and his 
mutinous troops. At one critical moment, when a brigade was 
on the point of departing, the exasperated General, resolved to 
conquer or die in the attempt, caught up a musket and rode 
before the columns. The tall, erect figure, the white, deter- 
mined face, the blazing eyes, the wounded arm in a sling, 
formed a picture which those who saw it could never forget. 
The brigade stood still in mute, sullen rebellion. The General 
swore he would shoot down the first man who dared to move. 
Every soldier knew he would keep his word. 

The mutiny was quelled ; but the fire only smoldered. 

Despite his severity, Jackson's pity for his men was con- 
stantly coming to the surface in some characteristic speech or 
deed. 

On one occasion a starving soldier approached the General, 
begging for food. 

" I will divide with you my own," he replied, and drawing a 



19^ Our Presidents. 



few acorns from his pocket, he presented them to the man, 
sayhig, " That is all I have." 

The fight at Fort Strother ended in a swift victory for the 
whites. Afterward the troops marched fifty miles to the 
" Horseshoe Bend " of the Tallapoosa. Here the Creek war- 
riors, assembled in force, believed their position impregnable. 
This battle was the most important one of the Indian cam- 
paign. It raged from ten in the morning until dark, and when 
it closed " the Indians had been conquered in North America." 
The long feud between the white and red man virtually came 
to an end when Andrew Jackson led his victorious troops from 
Fort Tohopeka. 

A little later the victor returned home. Nashville received 
him with triumph. The whole South was Avild with joy over 
its deliverance from the savages. It was full of gratitude 
toward Jackson. All his severities were forgotten. 

During the summer of 1814 vague rumors of British troops 
in Florida, the Spanish province, and of a contemplated 
British descent on New Orleans, began to fill the air. They 
reached the ears of the victor, who was resting and recruiting 
his shattered health at the Hermitage. Alarm and dread took 
the place of the recent joy and security, and from all the South- 
West men's thoughts and hopes turned to the General who had 
just won such laurels in the Indian campaign. 

In May, 1814, Jackson's great services were rewarded "by 
his promotion to the rank of Major-General in the United 
States army, with a salary of over six thousand dollars. For 
those times he was a rich man." 

The fate of the Spanish territory was really sealed v/hen 
Andrew Jackson, whose deeds always followed fast upon his 
words, made up his mind that " Florida must be ours." 

He did not, of course, venture to avow this opinion openly. 
We were at peace, at least nominally, with Spain. Even 



Andrew Jackson. 193 



Jackson did not dare at first to assume the responsibility of 
marching a hostile army upon her territories. " But the resi- 
due of the Creek tribe had taken refuge within her borders, and 
a British force had landed on lier coasts." Tliere could be no 
doubt that the latter intended an attack on the weak defenses 
in the Southern States. Of course the savages would join the 
enemy. Jackson's patriotic soul burned at the thought. He 
longed to make a descent with his militia upon Pensacola, and 
sweep the British shipping from her noble bay. But bold as he 
was, he would not proceed to these extreme measures without 
orders from the government. 

Meanwhile, as he fumed and waited reluctantly, the British 
gave him his chance. The defense of Mobile forms another 
stirring chapter in the history of this time. It can only claim 
a sentence or two here. The great drama of the autumn that 
was to be so famous in American annals, opens with the rapid 
march of two thousand Tennessee troops to Mobile. The 
enemy had decided to strike their first blow at that point. 
Jackson threw a small garrison into Fort Bowyer's walls which 
were falling to ruins. A British fleet from Pensacola appeared 
off the shore. Sailors and Indians were landed a few miles 
from the fort. The Tennessee troops had not made their 
forced marches of four hundred miles through the wilderness 
an hour too soon. 

Hot work soon ensued between the fleet and the gallant 
little garrison. The fleet poured its broadsides into the old, 
tumble-down fore. The latter answered by its steady cannonade. 
The issue for a long time seemed doubtful. But at last, the 
Hermes, one of the four ships of war, " her cable cut, raked 
from bow to stern by the hail of shot," ran aground. This was 
the last of the Hermes. The captain removed his crew and 
set fire to the vessel. 

The dark night, the sea, the fleet, and the coast line were 
13 



• 
194 Our Presidents. 



splendidly illuminated by the burning ship. The rest of the 
vessels weighed anchor and disappeared. The land force 
of marines and Indians vanished in the night silently as 
specters. 

In the morning the little garrison poured out from the 
miserable defenses. Their losses amounted to only four dead 
and four wounded. At Mobile, General Jackson had a day 
of agonizing suspense. The first tidings announced the 
defeat of the garrison. He was mustering his troops to repair 
to the scene of action and retrieve the day, when a courier 
dashed in with the glorious news. 

So on Mobile Point the campaign had opened for Andrew 
Jackson with victory. 

On November 3, 1814, General Jackson set out for the old 
Spanish town of Pensacola, with its fine harbor, on the Gulf of 
Mexico. He had three thousand troops. They carried no 
baggage. Three days later they halted within a mile and a half 
of the town. Jackson had acted without orders from his govern- 
ment. But he evidently did not entertain a doubt that it would 
sustain him. 

In his first message to the Governor, he disavowed any hostile 
intent on Spanish subjects or Spanish property. His aim, he 
declared, was directed solely against the enemies of the United 
States. These, the British and their Indian allies, were shel- 
tered in the forts. He therefore demanded their surrender, 
" but he also pledged his honor to restore the forts as soon as 
the danger Avas over." 

This unparalleled challenge to a foreign power with which 
the United States was at peace, received at first no reply. Mau- 
requez, the Spanish governor, was simply thunderstruck by its 
audacity. His sympathies, no doubt, were with the British and 
the savages. But the enemy, strong in numbers, and flushed 
with recent victory, was at his gates. He consulted with his 



Andrew Jackson. 195 



officers. At last he brought himself to the point of replying, 
" Governor Maurequez could not accede to General Jackson's 
request." 

The night was far advanced when the messenger returned 
with this answer. 

" Turn out the troops." That was all General Jackson's 
comment. 

Wild consternation filled the old Spanish town of Pensacola 
on the morning of November 7, 1814. The American forces 
had stonned the place ; they had entered the town ; they had 
already carried two batteries, when the distracted Governor, 
throwing to the winds all his stately old Spanish dignity, rushed 
into the streets bearing a white flag. 

A little later the Governor and the General stood face to 
face. The town was at the mercy of the latter, and the Span- 
iard had to agree to the terms of the imperious American. He 
engaged that tlie forts should be surrendered. 

All this time seven British men-of-war lay in the bay. But 
the Americans had entered the town by a route least exposed 
to a cannonade. 

Though the town was Jackson's by the end of that brief 
autumn day, there was naturally some delay in surrendering the 
forts. 

During the night a frightful explosion aroused the inhabit- 
ants of Pensacola. When the morning broke Fort Barrancas 
was a heap of ruins, and the British fleet had disappeared from 
the harbor. 

Andrew Jackson had won his second victory ! 

There was no time to waste at Pensacola. The army re- 
turned to Mobile without the loss of a single man. But Jack- 
son was bitterly disappointed at the escape of the fleet, which 
he feared might sail for Mobile. It never seems to have 
entered his mind that his unwarrantable proceedings on foreign 



196 Our Presidents. 



territory could possibly be disavowed by his government or be 
questioned by a single American. 

Andrew Jackson reached New Orleans early in December, 
1814. He had waited ten days in Mobile for the English fleet. 
Once assured that the town was safe, he had turned all his 
thoughts and energies to the defense of the great southern me- 
tropolis. He had been more than a week on the journey, riding 
seventeen miles a day over the wretched roads. Gaunt, yellow, 
shaken by long illness, as he rode with his staff, it must have 
seemed almost as though a dying man had come at last to the 
rescue of the city. 

The great work of Jackson's life now lay before him. The 
defense of New Orleans forms another tempting chapter to his 
biographer, but a volume can alone do it justice. When Andrew 
Jackson entered the city in that autumn of 1814, he was a com- 
paratively unknown man. Before the winter had closed he was 
the hero of the nation ; he had proved himself one of the world's 
great military geniuses. 

He found New Orleans indolent, supine, with little idea of 
the danger that was menacing her, and incapable of any effort 
to oppose it. Bitter local animosities divided her leaders. " Her 
inhabitants, composed of various peoples, had small confidence 
in each other." 

With Jackson's appearance on the scene all was changed. 
The born leader had found his hour, had come to his place. 
Worn with his long travel and his chronic illness, he went 
straight at the work before him ; he infused his own energy, 
promptness, decision, into the helpless, bev/ildered city. There 
v/ere no more halting counsels, no more dallying, half-hearted 
measures. The master was at hand to organize, discipline, in- 
spire. It was all done like magic. Hope, courage, patriot- 
ism, succeeded the old indecision, perplexity and helpless 
panic. 



Andrew Jackson. I97 



Andrew Jackson believed — he somehow made tlie city of 
New Orleans believe — that, despite its immense disadvantages, 
its scant preparation, its small forces, it would sweep back the 
British fleet when the hour of trial came into the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

Meanwhile the great fleet was coming, with its " fifty ships, 
its thousand guns, and nearly twenty thousand men." 

Its officers were the flower of the British army. Victory 
was with them a foregone conclusion. They came fresh from 
the great battle fields of Europe, from the long wars of the 
Peninsula, from the glory of Waterloo ! That vast armament 
felt so certain of victory ! Its officers, its rank and file, and its 
sailors, regarded the foe with a supreme contempt. No doubt 
they felt it would be a mere play at war to end the contest be- 
tween Great Britain and America by taking that low-lying, marsh- 
girdled, half-defenseless city of New Orleans. 

And all that great armament had to reckon witli was one 
man worn with pain almost to a skeleton, with stern, fierce eyes 
blazing out of his haggard, sallow face ! The mere facts read 
like the wildest romance. 

From the Island of Jamaica, over the tropical seas, through 
the soft autumn weather, the great fleet came ! 

At Lake Borgne a struggle took place with the few American 
gun-boats which gallantly disputed the passage of the enemy. 
The engagement ended in an easy triumph for the British. A 
little later, the army had landed safely on American soil, and 
had taken up its march toward the city before New Orleans 
dreamed of its approach. 

A little after noonday, December 23, 1814, General Jackson, 
at headquarters, learned the tremendous news. The enemy 
had come to a brief halt on a plantation nine miles below the 
city. The son of the owner had been captured. He managed 
to escape, mounted his horse, and spurred for New Orleans. 



iqS Our Presidents. 



The General listened calmly to the news. When he had learned 
the truth he turned quietly to his staff and said : 

" GerMemen, the British are beloxv. We must fight them 
to- flight." 

And he did ! 

At four o'clock in the afternoon, just as the short Avinter day 
was growing into twilight, General Jackson watched from the 
gates of Fort St. George, the sloop-of-war Carolina weigh 
anchor and drop down the river. Then he took the road where 
the troops had passed to meet the enemy. He left the silent, 
lonely city behind him, with the scared women, the old people, 
and the helpless children. 

There was a dim moon that night. The American army 
went silently to meet its foe. It had one immense advantage ; 
it knew the "lay of the ground." 

The British watch-fires at last came in sight. They illumi- 
nated the landscape, so that the Americans could keep their 
own way and see the enemy perfectly. The Carolina, " anchored 
close in shore opposite the British camp, was to give the signal 
of attack. At half-past seven the first gun was fired." 

Then the ship's broadsides poured over the low, wet Delta 
where the British were encamped. 

The confused, desultory fighting between the two armies on 
that winter night, lasted for about an hour and a half. All the 
time the Carolina poured broadsides into the darkness, not 
knowing whether her fire even reached the enemy. 

The Southern night was chill and dark, and the Americans 
thought it prudent to retire from action and await the morning. 
But when the dawn broke and the fog slowly lifted, New 
Orleans, listening breathless for every sound of the distant bat- 
tle, knew she was saved for that tim.e. The Carolina had done 
deadly work in the British ranks. The advance had been 
checked. 



Andrew Jackson. 1 99 



By daylight, General Jackson, with his iron energy, set his 
army at tlie work of heaping up his famous intrenchments. along 
the old Rodriguez Canal in the soft, wet soil of tlie Mississippi 
Delta. "The works were a mile long by sunset." Everybody 
had a share in the work. Hard hands and soft vied with each 
other in " digging the mud and planting the stakes." General 
Jackson seemed to be omnipresent. For three days and three 
nights the frail, gaunt body which held that imperious soul took 
no rest. The scant food he allowed himself was eaten mostly 
on horseback. 

On that December 24, 1814, while the Louisianians were 
building their intrenchments, and a little way off the great Brit- 
ish army, encamped on the low Delta, was watching the move- 
ments of the busy, swarming enemy, the Treaty was signed at 
Ghent at twelve o'clock which made peace between England 
and the United States. 

But it would be weeks before the tidings could cross the 
stormy winter seas, and meanwhile brave men in both armies 
must keep at their work of spoiling and killing each other on 
the banks of the Mississippi ! 

On Christmas morning there was wild rejoicing in the Brit- 
ish camp. The great army, so used to victory, had been sur- 
prised and perplexed by the movements of the enemy. Its high 
confidence in easy victory had been a good deal shaken by the 
check it had received in its first engagement with the Americans. 

But on C-hristmas morning, General Packenham had appeared 
to take command of the army. This was the secret of tlie 
rejoicings. He was the brother-in-law of the Duke of Welling- 
ton. This name, which was a synonym for glory and victory, 
and which thrilled every British soldier's heart, invested the 
brother-in-law with a borrowed halo. Yet General Packenham 
had had a brilliant military career. He had proved himself a 
brave officer and was distinguished for his humanity. 



200 Our Presidents. 



This brother-in-law of the great Duke, whose arrival inspired 
such fresh hope In the British army, looked over the situation 
and came to his first resolve. This was to blow up the schooner 
Carolina, which had made such havoc in the ranks during the 
late advance. 

The work was done on the morning of December 27th. 
The little sloop was soon struck by the terrible cannonade 
that opened on her. She took fire ; her crew were compelled 
to abandon her. There was a fearful explosion, a mighty cheer 
from the British ranks, a shiver of terror at the heart of New 
Orleans, and the Carolina had disappeared. But she was 
henceforth to have her place in every history of the battle of 
New Orleans. 

The next day General Packenham "ordered a grand recon- 
noissance." The advance was made this time in the superb 
manner in v/hich British veterans always moved to battle. Such 
a sight had never been witnessed on Louisiana soil. The 
American army, composed of untrained militia, gazed on the 
magnificent spectacle, half spell-bound with admiring wonder. 
The morning, after days of chill and gloom, was lovely with 
the loveliness of the Southern winter. The burnished arms, 
the red and gray, the green and tartan uniforms, glittered in the 
sunlight. 

But a man with gaunt, stern face and eyes that blazed like 
fire, was waiting for this splendid foe. Another engagement 
followed, short and sharp. The Americans had the advantage 
of position. They were perfect marksmen. Under their firing 
" the British ranks at last broke in panic, retreated, hid them- 
selves. Their loss was nearly two-thirds more than that of the 
Americans." 

Another advance took place on New Year's Day, 181 5, and 
took the Americans by surprise. The lifting of a heavy fog 
showed tlic enemy only three hundred yards distant. The 



Andrew Jackson. 201 



firing, which at once began, made " confusion, disorder, broken 
ranks among the Americans." 

General Jackson first learned the condition of affairs by the 
crashing of balls around his headquarters. The British had 
discovered these and were cannonading them. In a moment 
the General was on the ground, animating the soldiers by his 
words and presence and seeing and directing everything. 

" Let her off ! " 

With this order of Jackson's, spoken quietly, the firing from 
the American battery began. The engagement continued furi- 
ously for an hour and a half. When it ceased about noon and 
the smoke lifted, it showed the British batteries, which had 
seemed so formidable, and were in reality so slight, utterly 
demolished. The veterans had been scattered by the terrible 
firing. Every mound, every knoll, every slight hollow on the 
plain where the columns had stood in battle array, now shel- 
tered brave but demoralized men. The shouts from the Ameri- 
can lines shook the welkin. 

But these several actions between the two armies were only 
the opening skirmishes of that great engagement which was to 
close the battle of New Orleans. 

General Packenham at last made up his mind to carry the 
American lines by storm. It must have seemed to his army of 
brave veterans that the stars fought against them. But they 
labored under the disadvantage of being on strange ground. 
The American methods of warfare were not in accordance with 
the military tactics of European battle-fields. The English 
soldiers had been devoured by impatience and chagrin at these 
weeks of long inaction, varied by miserable defeats. Their 
wrath was greater, because they held their enemy in contempt. 
It must have been a galling reflection to the veterans of the 
Peninsula and of Waterloo, that the untrained militia of the 
American Border held them at bay. The English army had 



202 Our Presidents. 



confidently expected to keep Christmas in New Orleans, and it 
was still encamped on the black soil of the Delta. 

General Packenham's plan was a simple one. It was to 
divide his army, recently reinforced by two regiments from 
England, " to send part across the Mississippi, to seize the 
enemy's guns and turn them on themselves. At the same time, 
he intended to make a general assault along the whole line of 
intrenchments." 

It was a little after one o'clock on the morning of January 
8th, 1815, when General Jackson called to his aids, who v/ere 
sleeping on the floor at headquarters : " Gentlemen, we have 
slept enough. Rise ! The enemy will be upon us in a few 
minutes." 

About thirty hours before, he had caught his first inkling 
of the British General's new plan. He was soon satisfied that 
the next engagement between the two armies would take place 
simultaneously on both sides of the Mississippi. 

So, on that day of days in Andrew Jackson's life, he roused 
his staff at one o'clock. By four every man in the American 
lines was at his post. The daylight slowly penetrated the thick, 
gray fogs. After watching intently for about two hours, the 
Americans caught a faint red glow through the mist. It was 
the advancing Redcoats. They came forward in solid columns, 
in superb array. Even at this remote time one cannot think of 
ail those brave men in the midst of whom marched the regiment 
of " praying Highlanders " — men with the very temper of Oliver 
Cromwell's soldiers when they charged at Marston Moor — one 
cannot think of them, moving steadily up to the swift, certain 
death, without a pang. 

The Americans awaited, silent and grim, that splendid 
advance. Those untrained frontier militia were the best marks- 
men in the world. When the signal came, the rifles poured out 
their sudden fire. Like sheets of deadly lightning it plowed 



Andrew Jackson. 203 



and leveled the British columns. The swift, steady slaughter 
shook even the trained nerves of the veterans. When the ranks 
were once broken, it was impossible to re-form and advance 
under " that hail of musket-balls, powder and grape-shot." Now 
the fog had cleared, the vast scarlet masses afforded a jjcrfect 
target to the Americans. The British, in their amazement and 
confusion, behaved as if they were under a fate, like the actors 
in some ancient drama. They stood helpless, while the sheets 
of fire mowed them down. 

Throughout the battle the ofificers did their best to rally the 
troops and lead them into fresh action. But nothing human 
could stand that fire. In a little while the carnage among the 
officers was frightful. General Packenham was killed. Other 
generals were borne wounded or dying from the field. 

The end came swiftly. Before eight o'clock on that January 
morning, headlong flight and total rout took place on the east 
bank of the Mississippi. It seems incredible, though it is none 
the less true, that the battle was fought in twenty-five minutes ! 
Not that the firing ceased at the end of that time, for it was 
continued behind the low, scant American intrenchments for 
the next two hours. But the marksmen could only pour their 
fire into the thick smoke which hung over the battle-field. The 
extremities of the long lines had alone been engaged. " One 
half of the army had never fired a shot." 

When the smoke lifted at last, and disclosed the battle-field, 
there was no enemy in sight. The dead, the dying, the wounded, 
lay full in view. One is glad to learn that the Americans forgot 
all the joy of triumph in the pity and horror of the spectacle. 

Seven hundred killed, fourteen hundred wounded, five hun- 
dred prisoners, were the result of that twenty-five minutes' 
work. The American loss was eight killed and thirteen wounded. 

The British had made their attack, as General Jackson had 
foreseen, on both sides of the river. They won the day on the 



204 Our Presidents. 



western bank. The road to New Orleans was open before them. 
But the adverse fate of the eighth of January pursued the 
victors. At the critical moment the artillery was wanting. 

What was more, General Lambert, on whom, with the death 
of his superiors, the command had devolved, was not equal to 
the occasion. The loss of so many of his brother officers, with 
all the terrible events of the morning, had unnerved him. He 
had not the spirit to pursue his advantages, or even hold them. 
A little after midday the sound of a bugle outside the American 
intrenchments "brought the whole army to the edge of the 
parapet." 

General Lambert had sent a white flag to the Commander- 
in-chief. He agreed to abandon his strong positions on the 
opposite side of the river, and, after soine delays, an armistice 
was concluded. 

The " last war" between England and America was ended, 
and General Jackson was its hero ! 

The question strikes one curiously here, as to what Andrew 
Jackson's place would have been in American history, had the 
battle of New Orleans never been fought. It won him the 
brightest laurels of his life. Yet those brave British soldiers, 
those five hundred and forty-four noble Highlanders, aiid all 
the new English widows and orphans had to pay the bitter 
price of ignorance regarding the Treaty of Ghent. 

Of course New Orleans went wild with joy over her deliver- 
ance. She greeted the returning victor with ovations ; she 
chaunted Te Deums over him ; she crowned him with laurels ; 
She celebrated him with grand processions and gay illumina- 
tions. For a time the air was loud with laudation and grati- 
tude. But as time passed on, low murmurs of discontent and 
anger began to be heard. The army had returned to the city 
two days after the victory, and the General continued to hold 
New Orleans in the iron grip of martial law. The citizens 



Andrew Jackson. 205 



were lield rigorously to military service. All exactions were 
submitted to without complaint, until tidings of the conclusion 
of peace filled the city with joyful excitement. The inhabitants 
now looked forward confidently to release from their ungrateful 
toils, but they had yet to count with their stern Commander. 
He would not relax an inch of his rigors until the tidings of 
peace were officially confirmed. Martial law was still maintained, 
and the citizens were held pitilessly to hard labor in the lines. 
The free American city had a taste of absolute rule. The dis- 
content grew wide and deep. Only fear of Jackson prevented 
open rebellion. Anybody who dared toquestion that imperious 
will did it at his cost. Even the Judge of the United States 
was promptly arrested and imprisoned, because he had pre- 
sumed to "grant a petition for a writ of habeas corpus." Other 
offenders met Avith scant mercy. No editor was permitted to 
criticise the General's high-handed measures. 

At last the tidings of peace were confirmed. The Southern 
city breathed free again, and in her joy of victory, and her 
newly regained liberty, forgave," for the most part, her stern 
deliverer. 

The Judge's chance came now. He returned to the city 
and fined Jackson a thousand dollars. The latter insisted on 
paying it, although some of his friends were eager to do this for 
him. 

While General Jackson was at New Orleans a scene occurred 
at Mobile, which brings out strongly the pitiless side of this 
dual nature. 

On February 21, TS15, six Tennessee soldiers were shot at 
Mobile in the presence of the whole army. " The court mar- 
tial found them guilty of mutiny and the General approved the 
sentence." The case was a peculiarly sad one. " The men 
probably had no idea of doing wrong." They were convinced 
that their term of service had expired at the end of three 



2o6 Our Presidents. 



months, though they had enUsted for tv/ice that term. But 
the State appears to have had at that time no claim to the longer 
service. General Jackson's order "was an act of altogether 
needless severity." The time for stern examples and martial 
law had gone by ; but the General was inexorable and the men 
had to meet their hard fate. 

" It required all the glory of the victory at New Orleans to 
obliterate the memory of the execution at Mobile." 

In April, General Jackson returned to Nashville. The in- 
habitants gave their great citizen a reception which must have 
gratified him. He had won his laurels in two campaigns. 
Men said of him that he had conquered the red man and the 
British army. Honors and glories were heaped upon him. His 
name was spoken Avith enthusiasm in every part of the Union. 
It was often coupled with Washington's. 

The summerof 1815 was spent in recruitinghis almostwrecked 
health at the beloved Hermitage, and in the autumn General 
Jackson was sufficiently recovered to undertake a visit to Wash- 
ington. His journey was like a triumphal progress. When he 
reached the capital, the hero of the battle of New Orleans was 
greeted with every possible distinction. He was the lion of fes- 
tivities, the cynosure of drawing rooms. He carried himself 
through this trying ordeal with much dignity, and with that in- 
born grace which left nothing to criticise ; but he was no doubt 
surprised and pleased, while his ambitions were stimulated by 
all this wide popularity. 

Three years and three days after the battle of New Orleans, 
General Jackson was at the Hermitage when he received orders 
from the Government to put on his harness once more, and repair 
to the field. The old trouble with the Indians had broken out 
again. The Creeks had made a virtue of necessity and sub- 
mitted to the white man ; but they hankered after the old hunt- 
ing grounds. In Florida the Seminoles, more or less encouraged 



Andrew Jackson. 207 



by the Spaniards, had never consented to the surrender of their 
lands. 

The long chapter of the "Seminole War " and all that came 
of it, can barely be touched on in this brief space. In the 
absence of the Governor, Jackson assumed every responsibility. 
His summons to the new campaign was like a bugle call to the 
yeomen of East Tennessee. 

General Jackson left Nashville resolved, if necessary, to bring 
Florida to a stern reckoning. He had along score of grievances 
laid up against the Spanish province. Under her flag, the hostile 
savages had found shelter. Beneath its protection, the English 
had formed their plans and sallied forth to make their attacks 
on the United States. In Jackson's eyes the neutral territory 
was simply the shelter of a dangerous enemy. 

With these convictions, and with the temper they inspired, 
Andrew Jackson went to tlie Seminole war. The Indians in 
their long struggle with the white race had suffered cruel wrongs 
and oppressions. They retaliated with the vindictiveness of 
the savage. White men, women and children, who fell into 
their hands, underwent horrible tortures. Andrew Jackson 
firmly believed that these atrocities would never have been com- 
mitted had the Spaniards and the English not been at hand to 
sow disaffection for their own purposes among the tribes. 

On January 22, 181 8, General Jackson left Nashville " at the 
head of his mounted riflemen and marched four hundred and 
fifty miles through the wilderness." This required forty-six 
days. The provisions, as usual, failed to arrive. It was simply 
a question of starvation or moving forward. It need not be 
said which horn of the dilemma General Jackson chose. At 
Fort Gadsden, where his hungry, impatient troops waited, the 
General learned that the flotilla of provisions which was ex- 
pected from New Orleans had been delayed by the Crovernorof 
Pensacola. Then Andrew Jackson made up his mind to march 



2o8 Our Presidents. 



into the neutral territory of his Catholic Majesty, the King of 
Spain, and seize Fort St. Mark's. That delayed flotilla, in his 
mind, furnished ample provocation. 

The General, however, first dispatched a polite but suf- 
ficiently peremptory message to the Spanish Governor, who now 
allowed the ships to pass, and Fort Gadsden was provisioned. 
The General must have smiled grimly to himself. He had dis- 
covered the right way of dealing with these Spanish authorities. 

Jackson had a large force, including two thousand friendly 
Creeks, with him. The day after the provision fleet appeared 
the army was en route for St. Mark's. 

General Jackson had now crossed the Rubicon, After he 
had taken this tremendous step, there could, of course, be no 
half measures. Arrived at St. Mark's, he lost no time in inform- 
ing the Spanish Governor that he had come to take possession 
of the fortress and garrison it with American troops while the 
war lasted ! He condescended to justify the measure on the 
ground of self-defense. He affirmed that the savages were in 
St. Mark's and obtaining ammunition there. His action, he 
added, could not but be satisfactory to the King of Spain ! 

It took some time for the bewildered Governor to compre- 
hend these demands and charges. He refused the first ; he 
denied the second, with all the old Spanish punctilio and 
courtesy. 

General Jackson wasted no words in parleying. He replied 
to the Governor's letter by taking possession of the fort. " The 
Spanish flag was lowered. The stars and stripes floated from 
the flag-staff. The American troops took up their quarters in 
the fortress." 

General Jackson condescended to tell the amazed and help- 
less Governor " that his personal rights and private property 
should be respected ; that he should be made comfortable as 
possible while compelled to remain at St. Mark's, and that as 



Andrew Jackson. 209 



soon as transports could be furnished, they should convey the 
Governor, his family, and command to Pensacola ! " 

The victorious General was in no mood for mercy now. 
Two powerful Indian chiefs were taken prisoners at St. Mark's. 
They were hanged by his orders the day after he occupied the 
fort. The terrible atrocities which they had committed on white 
men and women were thus sternly avenged. 

Another prisoner, of a different stamp, was taken. Alexan- 
der Arbuthnot was an old man, a Scotch trader, " an inmate of 
the Governor's family." When Jackson entered the fort, Arbuth- 
not's horse was at the gate. Its owner was on the point of leaving. 
But anybody within the fort was certain to incur the new com- 
mander's hostile suspicions. Arbuthnot's explanations did not 
satisfy Jackson. He was ordered into close confinement. In 
two days Jackson pushed on through the Florida swamps to 
the headquarters of the Seminole chief, in Suwannee town. Ar- 
rived there, he found the Indians and negroes had made their 
escape into Florida fastnesses where no white men could reach 
them. The prisoner Arbuthnot had written to his son, who 
was with the Seminoles, and forewarned of the danger they had 
disappeared. 

The Seminole war was over for the time. The General 
returned to St. Mark's, which he had left strongly garrisoned, in 
no gentle mood. He was naturally much exasperated at the 
escape of the enemy, for which Arbuthnot was responsible. 
With the army came another important prisoner of war, " Rob- 
ert C. Ambrister, a nephew of the English Governor of the 
Island of New Providence, an ex-lieutenant of British marines." 

The young officer had, with his attendant — a white man, and 
two black servants — stumbled one night into the American 
camp, upon the banks of the Suwannee. He was on his way to 
the Indians ; his headquarters were Arbuthnot's vessel, a hun- 
dred miles distant. 
14 



2 1 o Our Presidents. 

Jackson learned these facts from Ambrister's attendant and 
instantly gave orders that the vessel should be seized. 

The two British subjects were now put on trial at St. 
Mark's. " They were variously charged with inciting the Creeks 
to war, aiding and comforting the enemy, and supplying 
them with the means of war." Both were pronounced guilty. 
Arbuthnot was sentenced to be hanged ; Ambrister to be shot. 

The General approved the sentence. Both men were 
executed. 

Andrew Jackson's conduct during the Seminole war has 
been the subject of a vast amount of controversy. It has been 
regarded by one side as little less than monstrous, while the other 
has insisted that the circumstances fully justified his course. 

But the verdict of history will not be likely to change. 
The death of these men will always remain a dark page amid 
many brilliant ones in Andrew Jackson's life. 

At Fort Gadsden, about to disband his militia, General 
Jackson, within a day's march of Pensacola, received from the 
Governor of West Florida, " a protest against his presence, and 
a threat of expulsion if he did not at once march out." 

Certainly the Governor of his Catholic Majesty was only 
doing his duty toward the foreign invaders. 

Jackson's reply was to order the troops to march at once for 
Pensacola. He entered the city. The Governor fled to Fort 
Barrancas and fortified himself there. Jackson approached and 
demanded the surrender of the fort. It was refused, and the 
batteries opened upon the invaders. But Spanish valor soon 
faltered before the American fire. Jackson was ready to enter 
the Barrancas when the white flag appeared and the Governor 
surrendered. 

Andrew Jackson's military career closed with this event. 

Five days later he set out for Tennessee. Celebrations and 
banquets greeted his return home. The State sustained its 



Andrew Jackson. 2 1 1 

great soldier. At a public dinner his course in Florida was 
entirely approved. 

Europe was shocked at Jackson's behavior. It seemed a 
violation of all laws, divine and human. The old Spanish 
pride and honor were outraged by the American invasion of 
her territory and the indignities heaped on her Governor. 
England was aroused by the execution of British subjects. 
The popular feeling was so strong that Lord Castlereagh doubt- 
less told the truth when he said, " he had only to lift his hand 
and there would have been war." 

But at this critical time, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy 
Adams sustained General Jackson with all their powerful influ- 
ence. In December, 1818, when Congress was forced to take 
up the matter of his crossing the boundaries, the irate soldier 
exclaimed : " There's a combination in Congress to ruin me ! " 
He was, no doubt, fully possessed by this conviction, when he 
made the long journey to Washington in January, 1819. His 
military course was now the subject of protracted discussion 
and criticism in Congress. His patriotism and ability received 
the warmest eulogiums, but it seemed impossible, in the face of 
the evidence, to defend his course in the Florida matter. The 
slightest adverse criticism aroused the General's unbounded 
wrath. He believed that he had acted wisely in Florida. He 
felt that his sole object had been the interests of his country, 
and any one who questioned this was certain to make a life- 
long enemy of Andrew Jackson. 

After all the discussion and excitement in Congress, no 
final action was taken against him. He became more popular 
than ever. He made brief visits to Philadelphia, and to New 
York, which he saw for the first time. He had one long ova- 
tion. Toasts, speeches, banquets awaited him. At New York 
he was presented with the freedom of the city in a gold box, 
and the military and the theaters celebrated his arrival. 



2 1 2 Ovr Presidents. 



When he returned home in March, Tennessee crowned all 
the honors and distinctions he had received, by meeting her 
illustrious citizen with an escort on the frontier, and a trium- 
phal procession accompanied him to Nashville. 

In 182 1 Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States, 
and General Jackson was appointed Governor. In the new 
post he did not show to advantage. He was invested with 
great powers and he used them to the fullest extent. His 
treatment of ex-Governor Callava, the accomplished and stately 
Spaniard, whom he sent to pass the night in a calaboose, was 
an act which only the most absolute of rulers would have 
attempted. 

General Jackson now grew wearied and disgusted with his 
office. In three months he resigned it and returned, a tired, 
weather-beaten man, to the Hermitage, in November, 1821. 

The old log hut was now replaced by a handsome brick 
house with pillars and broad piazzas, and handsome stables in 
the rear. It stood in the midst of the fertile acres of his large 
estate. Here he intended to lay by his armor, and enjoy for 
the rest of his life the cultivation of his land and the peace of 
his home. 

The most that Congress did now was to annul some of the 
least defensible of his late measures in Florida. The people 
were bent on supporting their soldier. The nation was keep- 
ing its greatest role for Andrew Jackson. 

In 1824 the hero of New Orleans, or "Old Hickory," as 
his soldiers called him about their camp fires, was proposed by 
the Tennessee Legislature for the presidency. Many people, 
no doubt, smiled derisively when they heard that name associ- 
ated with such an office. Despite his great military successes, 
Andrew Jackson was still widely regarded by those who had 
not been brought into personal relations with him " as a rough, 
uncouth soldier, with a genius for fighting." 



Andrew Jackson. 2 t 3 



The four Virginians and the one New Englander who had 
occupied the nation's highest office, had been men of social 
distinction. They were accustomed to an atmosphere of cul- 
ture and refinement. If such a word is admissible in a repub- 
lic, they were aristocrats. It was instinctively felt by a large 
portion of the people that a President of the United States 
should fitly represent the social and intellectual life of the 
nation. The Tennessee candidate, it was said, had little 
respect for letters. " The Vicar of Wakefield was the only 
entire book he had ever been known to read in the course of 
his life." 

Should the stately Washington, the sagacious Adams, the 
philosophic Jefferson, the scholarly Madison, the accomplished 
Monroe, be succeeded by the fierce, unlettered Tennessean, 
who made his own will the law of his life, who had stormed 
into foreign territory, who had, on slight provocation, executed 
American citizens and bearded kings by hanging and imprison- 
ing their subjects ? 

This was the way in which a part of the people were talking 
about Andrew Jackson in that far-away summer of 1824. Even 
Jefferson, with all his Democratic sympathies, was dismayed at 
the prospect of this man's becoming President of the United 
States. 

'* He is the most unfit man I know of for such a place," he 
said, at Monticello, to Daniel Webster. " His passions are 
terrible," and he went on to relate how Jackson in his youth 
could never speak in tlic Senate, though he often attempted it, 
" owing to the rage which was sure to master him." 

But in the winter of 1823-24 Andrew Jackson was, though 
very reluctantly on his part, once more in Washington, a mem- 
ber of the Senate. He had accepted the election in order to 
I)lease his friends, and was at the capital an object of supreme 
social and political interest. 



14 Our Presidents. 



Before the year had closed people had ceased to smile when 
Andrew Jackson's name was associated with the presidency. 
The result of the election proved that he had barely failed of 
carrying it. His friends claimed that it rightfully belonged to 
him. And his friends were the great masses of the people. His 
popularity in every part of the Union was immense and un- 
paralleled. His very name stirred hearts with a passion of love 
and devotion a good deal like that with which Napoleon Bona- 
parte's had once stirred the hearts of his soldiers. 

John Quincy Adams was President of the United States. 
While he had been Secretary of War he had proved himself 
the stanch and powerful friend of Andrew Jackson. He had 
defended his measures in the Floridas, and vindicated his 
course — no easy thing to do — with outraged Spain. 

But the great soldier and the great statesman met as friends 
for the last time when, after the ceremonies of the inauguration, 
Jackson, with great dignity and grace, congratulated his suc- 
cessful rival. 

In a short time the two had become bitter and life-long 
enemies. 

Tennessee was defeated but not discouraged. The popular 
imagination was dazzled, the popular heart was stirred. The 
masses resolved that their idol should be President. No stone 
was left unturned to achieve his election. Through all the 
administration of John Quincy Adams, the opposite party, 
united, harmonious, tireless, was working for his rival. 

The campaign opened with great excitement and bitterness. 
Jackson had many enemies. His life afforded salient points for 
severe and rancorous criticism, and his political opponents made 
the most of these. 

But the result proved a great triumph for him, and the fiery, 
indomitable soldier took the place of the calm, frigid, but high- 
souled and scholarly statesman. 



Andrew Jackson. 2 1 5 



In this culminating hour of victory and glory a blow fell 
upon Andrew Jackson from which he never recovered. It was 
the death of his wife. 

Mrs. Jackson was not a woman of intellectual gifts or cul- 
ture. She could not be the latter with a girlhood passed on the 
wild Indian frontier. But she had a woman's kindly heart. 
The fireside of the Hermitage was the center of her warm, tire- 
less hospitality. If she enjoyed sitting here with her husband 
after dinner, while they '' smoked their reed-stemmed pipes 
together," that was probably the fashion of the time and jjlace. 
Through all her life she retained the ardent devotion of her 
illustrious husband. Her compassion toward all helpless, suf- 
fering things was as abounding as his own. 

Mrs. Jackson did not share her husband's ambitions. When 
the first tidings of his election to the presidency reached her, 
she said quietly : " Well, for Mr. Jackson's sake, I am glad ; 
for my own part, I never wished it." 

No doubt she spoke from her heart. During the late years 
she had become a deeply religious woman. 

Mrs. Jackson had suffered keenly from the stories which, 
during the campaign, had not spared her. All the unhappy 
circumstances which preceded her marriage had been revived 
and distorted by her husband's political enemies. 

The slanders could not fail to deeply wound a sensitive 
woman. It was believed that they hastened the death of Mrs. 
Jackson. It followed a few days' severe illness. The last 
scenes were very touching. The General was completely pros- 
trated by grief. He was never the same man afterward. 

But the strong soul rallied after a while, although it was a 
lonely, broken-hearted man who, when the time came, went to 
his place at Washington. The will which had proved its un- 
flinching obstinacy in the camp was now to show itself as immov- 
able in the cabinet. 



2i6 Our Presidents, 



As this is not a political biography, it cannot enter into the 
liistory of the Jackson administration. Whatever virtues it pos- 
sessed, whatever mistakes it committed, there is no doubt that 
the new President went to his post with an earnest desire to 
serve his country, and that her welfare was always the supreme 
desire of his heart. 

General Jackson carried to the White House the temper 
and habits of the soldier. It was inevitable that new principles 
and new methods should distinguish his administration. 

The inaugural ceremonies were hardly over when there was 
wide-spread alarm among the government officials. These had, 
for the most part, retained their places through all the changes 
of administration. *' There had always been a strong, instinctive 
feeling against removing any man in the public service solely 
for his political preferences." 

Many of the officials at Washington had held their positions 
for years. " To dismiss them was to take away the sole means 
of existence for them and their families." But the new admin- 
istration proceeded remorselessly. The blows fell swift and 
constant. That year of 1829 was a year of cruel anxiety and 
suffering at the capital. The removals were conducted in a 
prompt, pitiless fashion, which strongly savored of military tri- 
bunals. 

" To the victor belong the spoils " was an epigram which 
had the ring of the camp, but it thoroughly expressed the spirit 
which governed the wide dismissal of those who were not parti- 
sans of the President. It is not easy to conceive of the imme- 
diate suffering which was caused by the creation of the " spoils 
system." Had the evil ended there it would have been a com- 
paratively slight one. 

It was Andrew Jackson's misfortune that he was by nature 
incapable of seeing both sides of the shield. His natural gifts, 
too, great as these were, could not make up for his lack of men- 



Andrew Jackson. 2 i 7 



tal training. This necessarily would be more conspicuous in 
the statesman than in the soldier. He was inclined to see in 
mankind but two classes : one was composed of his friends, the 
other of his enemies. In the latter he included all political 
opponents. These he regarded as personal enemies. They 
formed, in his eyes, a hostile army arrayed against him, and 
rec[uired to be dealt with in much the same fashion. 

The gaunt, haggard, broken-hearted man who went from his 
wife's death-bed to Washington, had been embittered by cruel 
wrongs. During the late political campaigns no falsehood 
regarding him had been too foul to be circulated, no deed too 
monstrous to be laid at his door. Political animosity had even 
assailed the memory of his noble, long-dead mother. His wife's 
last days, as we have seen, had been embittered, and her death 
probably hastened by the slanders which had been poured 
broadcast over the country, regarding her early life. 

It was, therefore, in no magnanimous spirit toward his de- 
feated enemies that the man whose temperament always inclined 
him to see everything in its personal bearings, went from the 
Hermitage to the White House. 

A storm soon opened. It seems incredible that the social 
standing of the wife of one of the members of the new cabinet 
should have been the occasion of more excitement, " should 
have caused more angry discussion than some state measure of 
vast consequence." This was owing largely to the determined 
manner in which the President, whose chivalric sentiments and 
sympathies had been aroused, espoused the side of the lady and 
made her recognition a matter of political consequence. 

The Bank of the United States, the issues with Clay and 
Calhoun, the dissolution of the cabinet, the remo\al of the 
Southern Indians to lands w^est of the Mississippi, all belong 
to the history of Andrew Jackson's first term of office. Dead 
issues, as they have long become, they were vital enough once 



2i8 Our Presidents. 



to shake the country. Each of these subjects, passed over here 
with the mere mention, would require many pages to do it 
justice. 

During these four years it was amply proved to the country, 
to the world, what kind of a man stood at the head of American 
affairs. 

The political olympiad wore away, and the time came for 
another election. Jackson had entered into office with the ex- 
pectation of leaving it in four years. But the country would not 
permit this. The next canvass was as bitter as Jackson's fiery 
partisans and bitter foes could make it. But the overwhelming 
majority with which he was returned to the White House, must 
have astonished both parties. It proved how strongly he was 
intrenched in the hearts of the masses. 

Nullification, the removal of the deposits, the claims for 
the French spoliations, made the second term of Jackson's 
administration as agitated as the first. He showed himself in 
these varied crises, a true patriot. At times, too, he displayed 
the unerring instinct of born, if not trained, statesmanship. His 
measures, during the nullification epoch, earned the enthusias- 
tic praise and gratitude of his most strenuous enemies. 

The Jackson administration closed after eight years with 
honor and glory. It is true that the President had not left the 
White House before the business prostration began which was 
to make the year 1837 so black a one in American history. It 
does not fall within the compass of this sketch to consider the 
causes of that great financial revulsion, or to question how far 
the measures of the administration may have been responsible 
for the distress which overwhelmed the country. Jackson 
certainly was never troubled by a doubt whether he had not 
always acted with the greatest possible wisdom. 

He was an old man of seventy: the frail body which had 
held that invincible spirit so long, was vv'orn with years and 



Andrew Jackson. 2 1 9 



pain when lie returned at last to the Hermitage. Despite his 
broken health, several happy years still lay before him. It is a 
pleasant picture to which we turn after the stormy life. If the 
light shines in the west, it is a fairer light than ever shone in 
the east of Andrew Jackson's life. 

Those whom he loved best were all about him. Of course 
he missed the presence of her who had so long been the life and 
joy of the Hermitage. But the adopted son, Mrs. Jackson's 
idolized nephew, with his gentle wife and their children, formed 
a large, happy household. Here Andrew Jackson's best, ten- 
derest qualities were sure to come to the surface ; here the stern 
old man, whose lips could speak the death sentence without 
a quiver, was the kindliest, most compassionate of all about 
him. 

The children of the Hermitage sported in unconscious fear- 
lessness about him ; they huddled at his side ; they crowded 
and teased him in perfect security. No outbreak of that terrible 
temper seems ever to have startled them. 

The slaves, too, worshiped and imposed upon him. He 
was the most indulgent of masters ; but he seems never to have 
had a scruple regarding the institution of slavery. Here, as in 
so many other respects, he differed widely from all the Presi- 
dents who had preceded him. 

The fires still burned, however, under the calm and kindli- 
ness. When some old political issue, or the name of some 
powerful opponent, became the subject of conversation, the 
eyes would blaze fiercely in the thin, haggard face, and the sen- 
tences would ring out in their old, terse, incisive way. 

Like Washington and Jefferson, Andrew Jackson left the 
White House to become a planter for the rest of his days. The 
Hermitage was a splendid and productive estate. It was culti- 
vated by a hundred and fifty slaves. 

So the peaceful years went over Andrew Jackson's white 



2 20 Our Presidents, 



head. Guests crowded to the Hermitage to gaze on the old 
man who had played so large a role in his country's history. 

With all his simplicity of tastes and habits he had a gra- 
ciousness of presence and manner, which impressed all who 
saw him. Where did that boy from the Waxhaw wilds acquire 
the dignified bearing with men, the grace and deference v/ith 
women, which would have made him at home in courts ? 

This was a question often discussed by Andrew Jackson's 
contemporaries. Some of the sesettled it by affirming that he 
had formed his manners after those of the elegant Aaron Burr, 
of whom he had, at one time and another, seen a good deal. 
But gracious and courteous manners are not acquired by a little 
chance association. That air of simple, quiet distinction; that 
suave, dignified bearing, must have been innate with Andrew 
Jackson. Perhaps they were an inheritance from some of his 
old Celtic ancestry. Yet he remained to the last a singularly 
unlettered man. It has been said that " his ignorance was as a 
wall round about him, high and impenetrable ; he did not even 
believe the world was round ! " Harvard University, however, 
"conferred upon him her honorary distinction of LL.D." 

The greatest of all questions came to his conscience with 
renewed force in the last years of his life : " How shall a man 
be at peace with his Maker ? " 

Andrew Jackson answered it at last, by joining the little 
church at the Hermitage, in which his wife had worshiped, 
and which he had built for her sake. The beloved young wife 
of his adopted son stood at his side and united with the church 
at the same time. No one of the crowds who witnessed the 
scene could ever forget it. 

After a struggle Jackson had declared that he forgave all 
his enemies. But it is only fair to him to say that his last 
days appear to have been haunted by no remorses. He never 
expressed a regret for deeds which, during his life and after his 



Andrew Jackson. 221 



death, have always formed the heaviest count against him. No 
ghost of young Wood, no shades of the Tennessee volunteers, 
no specter of innocent old Arbuthnot or proud Ambrister, 
appear ever to have visited Andrew Jackson's conscience. In 
his life — when he faced death — he seems never to have had a 
doubt that he had not acted righteously when he sent these men 
to their deaths. 

The end came slowly but surely. One question which, a 
few weeks before his death, he asked his friend and clergyman, 
Dr. Edgar, must find a place here. 

" Doctor," asked the feeble old man, " what will posterity 
blame me for most ? " 

The (juestion was hardly like that fiery, independent spirit. 
It had always gone its own way, not halting to ask how men 
would regard that. 

The Doctor had his chance now. He had always con- 
demned the system of official removals and appointments which 
Jackson had introduced during his presidency. He replied 
that he believed posterity would blame him most for proscribing 
people for opinion's sake, and clinched his remark by citing 
instances of numerous Kentuckians who had been removed 
from office solely because their political convictions differed 
from those of the administration. 

The General's reply must have astounded the clergyman. 
He affirmed that " during all his presidency he had turned but 
one subordinate out of office by an act of direct personal 
authority, and he was a postmaster ! 

Perceiving his hearer's amazement, he earnestly repeated 
this speech. 

Jackson's mind was clear at the time, his memory keen ; he 
must have said what he thoroughly believed. 

The end came at last on June 8th, 1845. Thirty years and 
six months before that morning, the battle of New Orleans had 



2 22 Our Presidents. 



been won. Andrew Jackson was seventy-eight years old now. 
He faced the last presence with the courage of the soldier and 
the faith of the Christian. 

He bore his last sufferings with heroic patience. The death- 
bed scenes were full of the tenderest pathos. The large house- 
hold, white and black, gathered about the dying man, to look 
upon his face, to hear his voice, for the last time. That June 
morning must have seemed, with its light and bloom, to mock 
the grief inside the Hermitage. 

The General took thought for every one. But it is charac- 
teristic that almost his last words were addressed to his servants. 
He caught through the open window the sound of their sobbing 
on the piazza. 

" What is the matter with my dear children ? " he asked. 
" Have I alarmed you ? Oh, do not cry ! Be good children 
and we will all meet in heaven." 

After this there seems to have been no more pain or struggle. 
He breathed softly for a while. The long June day was near 
its setting when his head fell forward. Andrew Jackson had 
ceased to breathe. 

They buried him, as he had desired, by the side of the wife 
to whose memory he had been so true. There was a singular 
depth of loyalty in this man's nature. Not long before he died 
he had said : " Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not find 
my wife there." 

As men disputed fiercely about him while he lived, so they 
have continued to dispute over his memory. He was beloved 
as few men are loved ; he was hated as few men are hated. 
Indeed, that strong character was made up of irreconcilable 
contradictions. 

All the time I have been writing about him, it has seemed as 
though two men were before me, and one was hard and remorse- 
less as adamant, and the other was gentle, compassionate, 



Andrew Jackson. 223 



tender, to all weak, helpless, dependent things that came in his 
way. 

No doubt America has had Presidents who were greater and 
better men than Andrew Jackson. But the life that began so 
hardly in the Waxhaw forests, and closed at last in the Tennes- 
see Hermitage, Avas full of remarkable episodes, of dramatic 
interest, of picturesque scenes and heroic deeds, which the 
world will not " willingly let die." 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 

The air was hardl}- clear from the smoke of the battles of 
the Revolution, when Martin Van Buren first saw the light, 
December 5, 1782, in the old town of Kinderhook on the Hud- 
son, nineteen days before the treaty of peace between England 
and the United States had been signed at Paris. That famous 
document must have been making its long way over the winter 
seas at the time of the boy's birth. 

Martin came of sturdy, old Dutch stock. His father was a 
farmer and kept a hostelry in the old river town. The elder 
Van Buren, shrewd and good-natured, seems to have had a 
knack of making both farm and tavern prosper. Martin's 
mother is said to have been a woman of good sense and piety, 
so this eldest son of the Van Buren household was well started 
for the race of life. 

He was an active, keen, intelligent boy ; he inherited, with 
the old Dutch fiber, the keenness and steady persistency of the 
breed ; he must have had a smooth and cheery boyhood ; he 
went to the best schools the Kinderhook of that day afforded ; 
but there was another school, one which, in many respects, was 
to leave more permanent marks, under the old tavern roof. 
Here, after the ancient custom, neighbors and travelers met 
and discussed the signs of the times and the politics of the day. 
It is easy to imagine what names were oftenest on the lips of 
the habitues of the Kinderhook tavern and what political con- 
troversies those old walls witnessed. Inside them, the vet- 
erans of the Revolution must have lived their battles over 
again. 




7^2^y(2c^<^^-^ 



Marl in Kan Bur en. 225 

Martin, keen and alert, listened to the talk and made up his 
mind on all the matters under discussion. He must, following 
the paternal example, have been a very sturdy Jeffersonian in 
those days. 

At fourteen, he had imbibed all the schooling which Kinder- 
hook afforded and set about his law studies. Me did not go to 
college, and was therefore forced to remain seven years in a law 
office before he could obtain admission to the bar. Six of these 
were passed at Kinderhook and the last one in New York, 
where he studied with William P. Van Ness, the friend of Aaron 
Burr, and his second in the famous duel with Alexander Ham- 
ilton. 

The young law student was at this time brought much 
into the society of the brilliant Burr. That powerful, seduc- 
tive personality must have had a strong influence upon the 
mind and character of the younger man. It was believed 
that Martin Van Buren showed throughout his life the in- 
fluence of that year of fascinating and dangerous companion- 
ship. 

In 1803, young Van Buren began the practice of law in his 
native town. This was a period of great political excitement 
throughout the country. The Federal party, which had founded 
the government, and which had so splendid a record during the 
first years of the nation's history, had, at the opening of the new 
century, been supplanted by the Democratic party, whose leader 
and idol was Thomas Jefferson. 

The young party was full of vigor, courage and aggressive 
force. The popular heart and instincts were on its side. Its 
sympathies had been wholly with that French Revolution whose 
echoes still lingered in American air. 

The fair-haired boy had not listened in vain to the talk in 
the Kinderhook tavern. With his bright, precocious intelli- 
gence he had seized the meanings of the political issues at 
15 



2 26 Our Presidents. 



stake and formed his opinions, and adhered to them with true 
Dutch tenacity for the remainder of his life. 

Martin was a born politician, although the environment of 
his boyhood and youth, no doubt, tended to develop and 
strengthen his native aptitudes in this direction. 

But he did not, during his young manhood, neglect his pro- 
fessional interests for politics. He practiced law for six years 
at Kinderhook with an ability that insured his success in his 
profession. Then he removed to Hudson. 

Just before he left Kinderhook, Mr. Van Buren married 
Miss Hannah Hoes. She was a native of the same town, and 
the two had been playmates and school-fellows. Their married 
life of twelve years appears to have been one of great harmony, 
and when it was broken by her death, no other woman ever took 
her place in her husband's heart and life. 

When he exchanged Kinderhook for Hudson, Mr. Van 
Buren entered upon a larger professional field. He spent seven 
years in this shire town of his county. Here he matched his 
powers with the most brilliant lawyers of the State, and won 
a wide legal reputation. At thirty he was elected to the 
State Senate. He had, by this time, become conspicuous in 
pohtics. He strongly supported Madison's administration, and 
heartily approved of the "last war" with England. 

By this time Van Buren was in the thick of the political 
controversies of his day, and was displaying more and more of 
his remarkable qualities for party management and leadership. 
In 1816, he was again a member of the State Senate. During 
this year he removed to Albany, which afforded a wider arena 
for the exercise of his political talents. 

From this time honors fell thick and fast to Van Buren. 

In 1818, he brought about a fresh organization of the New 
York Democratic party, of which " he held absolute control for 
twenty years." He was attorney- general of the State and also 



Mart in Van Bur en. 227 

its governor. It has been acutely remarked of Van Iluren that 
"he stood on the dividing line between the mere politician and 
the statesman, perfect in the arts of the one, possessing largely 
the comprehensive power of the other." 

In 182 1 New York sent Mr. Van Biiren to the United States 
Senate. Three years later he was in the thick of that tumultu- 
ous canvass which ended with the election of John Quincy 
Adams to the presidency. Van Buren was, perhaps, his most 
formidable opponent. The New York Senator found his ele- 
ment in the heated atmosphere of politics. He was not an 
idealist ; his genius concerned itself with the actual and pos- 
sible. It had, many of his contemporaries believed, a keen eye 
to the main chance. 

Jackson's election, in 1829, was thought to be largely due to 
Van Buren's signal power of "directing and controlling politi- 
cal forces." The new President rewarded his services by ap- 
pointing him Secretary of State. 

In his new office, amid most critical social and political 
issues, the Secretary carried himself with consummate adroit- 
ness and tact. The favor of his chief was of supreme impor- 
tance, and nothing was allowed to stand in the way of that. To 
this period belongs the bitter personal feud with Calhoun, which 
had later such important consequences. But whether the issue 
was some great state measure, or a social affair so trivial that it 
was intrinsically ridiculous, Van Buren was careful to shape his 
conduct in a way certain to win the approval of the indomitable, 
fiery old hero of New Orleans. When the cabinet was broken 
up Van Buren received from his partial chief the appointment 
of Minister to England. He arrived in London in the autumn 
of 1 83 1. Here a mortification befell him which v/ould have 
crushed a less elastic and self-poised nature. The Senate de- 
clined to ratify his nomination. 

The English journals circulated the news, but Van Buren, 



2 28 Our Presidents. 



with his Dutch pluck and self-poise, would not succumb. The 
evening on which his defeat was made public, the famous Prince 
Talleyrand, then French minister, gave a banquet. Mr. Van 
Buren was in the drawing-room, as gracious, courteous, urbane, 
as though no thunderbolt had just descended on him. He 
returned to America to have his chagrin consoled by the 
increasing favoritism of Jackson, and to receive higher political 
honors than ever. 

He was elected to the vice-presidency in 1832, and he who 
made it "the rule of his life never, if possible, to give fresh 
offense to an enemy, went, with smiles for all and reproofs for 
none, to take his place at the head of that Senate which had 
refused to confirm his nomination as ambassador." 

In his new office he presided v/ith such unvarying fairness 
and courtesy that he won the approval of both parties in the 
Senate. 

The friendship of Andrew Jackson was to make the culmi- 
nating good fortune of Martin Van Buren's life. The word of 
the great Tennesseean was all-powerful with his party. As his 
own term was closing, he threw the weight of his vast influence 
into the scale of Van Buren's nomination for the presidency, 
and he carried his point. 

On March 4, 1837, an immense crowd witnessed the inaugu- 
ration of Martin Van Buren. It was a striking scene when he 
rode side by side with Andrew Jackson in a phaeton drawn by 
four grays to take his oath of office. Both the men were 
uncovered. The gaunt, iron face of " Old Hickory " must have 
formed an immense contrast to the shrewd, smiling, handsome 
countenance of his successor. 

It was the new President's settled purpose to conduct his 
administration on the lines of his predecessor, but the circum- 
stances of one term did not repeat themselves in the other. 
Before the close of 1837, that great financial panic, which has, 



Martin f^an Buren. 229 

perhaps, no parallel in American history, shook the country. 
The wide-spread distress, the crashing of old and honorable 
business houses, the dismay and disaster of that gloomy year, 
were largely attributed to Jackson's high-handed measures with 
the banks. There was war, which shed no luster on American 
arms, with the Seminoles. To add to these domestic troubles, 
there were serious disputes with Great Britain about bound- 
ary lines, and an insurrection in Canada which involved the 
American Government and threatened another war with Eng- 
land. 

The President must have found his high position full of 
trials and anxieties. However he might succeed in ameliorat- 
ing the foreign difficulties, he could not relieve the financial 
tension at home. He and his party underwent a great eclipse 
in popularity. The Van Buren administration, which had 
opened so auspiciously under the smile of Jackson, drew to its 
close in the midst of a political canvass which filled the country 
with passionate strife. It ended with the defeat of the Demo- 
cratic party that had controlled the government for four years, 
and in the election of William Henry Harrison to the presi- 
dency. 

Van Buren bore his defeat in his equable, smiling way. No 
political reverses could shake the calm nerves he had inherited 
from his robust Dutch ancestry. He had a fine estate at his 
native Kinderhook, and he retired to this to enjoy his leisure 
and wealth, and to dispense his hospitalities in his generous and 
kindly fashion. 

A month after he left Washington, the nation was plunged in 
grief by the sudden death of the President. Mr. Van Buren 
went to New York and bore a conspicuous part in the funeral 
honors which were paid to General Harrison. 

In 1844, a great effort was made to nominate Mr. Van Buren 
for a second presidential term. But this time Jackson's influ- 



2 7)0 Our Presidents. 



ence and a strong pro-slavery sentiment carried the nomination 
for James K. Polk of Tennessee. 

In 1848, the Free Soil Democrats nominated the old political 
chief once more for the presidency. In accepting the nomina- 
tion he " avowed his full assent to the anti-slavery principles of 
the party." 

But it \vas not Van Buren's destiny to receive again the 
nation's highest gift. After this latest defeat he made an ex- 
tensive tour in Europe. He returned to Lindenwald, his fine 
estate at Kinderhook, and here, amid the scenes of his boyhood 
and youth, the ex-President passed peacefully and gracefully 
into old age. " He had been in active political life from 181 2 
to 1848. No other man in the country had held so many great 
places." His cheerful temper and his kindly feeling did not 
fail him as the years waxed and his old political comrades laid 
down their armor and went to their rest. 

In his political career all his bonhomie and courtesy had 
not prevented his having many bitter enemies. He was in 
character and temperament utterly unlike the seven Presidents 
who had preceded him. He had more moral pliancy ; he was 
of a different strain ; he had the shrewdness, the astuteness and 
the sagacity which go to make up the successful party manager, 
the born political leader. 

The ex-President must have been very delightful in private 
life. He had been very handsome in his youth, and the char- 
acter of the man is written in his shrewd, pleasant, sagacious 
face. He was proud of his country, and in spite of his old 
state-rights traditions, at the breaking out of the civil war he 
declared himself " decidedly and warmly in favor of maintain- 
ing the Republic." 

Mr. Van Buren's serene old age passed into his eightieth 
birthday. The United States had hardly become a nation at 
his birth. He passed from it in the second summer of that 



Martin yan Bur en. 231 

great Civil War which was to try so heavily the work which the 
fathers had done in that other summer of 1787, when Martin 
Van Buren was playing, a boy of four years, about the old 
tavern and among the lanes of Kinderhook. He died July 24, 
1862. 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 

During the autumn of 1840, the whole country was aflame 
with political excitement. The presidential canvass did not 
perhaps arouse intenser passions than the memorable one which 
followed the nomination of John Quincy Adams and Andrew 
Jackson. But the canvass of 1840 was conducted on entirely 
new lines. Its enormous mass-meetings, its torch-light proces- 
sions, its frequent parades and party emblems, all appealed 
to the popular fancy and stirred the popular heart. Never 
had such scenes taken place on American soil. The tumult, 
vehemence, passion, carried everything before them. " Log 
cabin and hard cider" formed the shibboleth of the young, 
vigorous, powerful party that was now moving heaven and 
earth to secure the election, which, for twelve previous years, 
had been carried with triumphant majorities by its opponents. 

A curious distich had caught the popular ear. It was thun- 
dered from thousands of throats at great mass-meetings, and 
sung and shouted by the little boys on the streets. It was an 
absurd little musical refrain which ran : 

" Tippecanoe, 
And Tyler too," 

It was doomed by the trend of events to have anything but 
agreeable associations for the party who had made it their rally- 
ing cry. 

Meanwhile Martin Van Buren at Kinderhook-on-the-Hudson, 
and William Henry Harrison at his farm at North Bend on the 
Ohio — the two candidates for the presidency — awaited the turn 
of events, each in his characteristic fashion. 




/c^ J^ /9^:^t^. 



William Henry Harrison. 233 

The latter had been nurtured amid the storms of the Revolu- 
tion. He saw the light a little more than two years before the 
fight at Concord, as he was born at Berkeley, Virginia, February 

9, 1773. 

He came of the sterling planter class which furnished so many 
of our early presidents. His father, a man in moderate cir- 
cumstances, " was an intimate friend of George Washington's," a 
member of the Continental Congress, a candidate for the office 
of speaker, though he yielded the place gracefully to John 
Hancock, and was three times elected Governor of Virginia — a 
brave, bluff, generous gentleman, who loved his country and 
served her with patriotic zeal ; a man with a girth like Falstaff, 
and who enjoyed his joke better than anything else in the 
world. This in his day and generation was Benjamin Harrison 
of Berkeley. 

His son, William Henry, was born a subject of George IH. a 
little while before the colony had made up its mind to shake off 
its allegiance to Great Britain. The boy was brought up amid 
noble examples and associations. He had every advantage 
which the father's comfortable means and position afforded. 
He went to the best schools of the time and place, and after- 
ward entered Hampden Sidney College, from which he gradu- 
ated with honor. 

Young Harrison had lost his father before he left college, and 
he went to Philadelphia to study medicine under Dr. Rush, and 
with Robert Morris for his guardian. Both these men were, 
like his father, signers of the Declaration of Independence. 

Medicine did not, however, detain young Harrison long. His 
soul was fired by reports of the terrible Indian ravages on the 
frontier. At nineteen, in spite of the protests of his friends, he 
resolved to enter the army, and succeeded in obtaining a com- 
mission from President Washington, who must have remembered 
his own youth in the Shenandoah wilderness. 



234 Our Presidents. 



With a frame so slight that it gave the impression of almost 
girlish delicacy, young Harrison set out for the frontier on the 
edge of winter. General St. Clair had met a little before on 
the Wabash with the terrible Indian surprise against which 
Washington had, at their parting, so earnestly warned him. 
The hardships and perils of the service did not, however, shake 
the young Virginian's resolution. But he took his life in his 
hand, and made the journey to Pittsburgh on foot, and then de- 
scended the Ohio to Fort Washington, a remote outpost in 1793, 
but occupying almost the spot where the city of Cincinnati now 
stands. Young Harrison had found his place. 

It is impossible in this brief sketch to dwell upon his military 
career, striking, varied, and successful as that proved in his long 
service on the frontier. 

In a short time he was promoted to a lieutenancy, and joined 
the army under General Wayne, or " Mad Anthony," as his 
popular title ran. 

On August 20, 1792, as the whole army under General Wayne 
were marching down the Maumee river, they encountered an 
Indian ambush. One of the fierce, bloody battles of the fron- 
tier followed. It ended in victory for the whites. Lieutenant 
Harrison behaved with signal courage. He was in the hottest 
of the fight. He won the warmest praise from the General 
and a captaincy, and was placed in charge of Fort Washing- 
ton. At this time he was only twenty years old. 

The years that follow form a noble record of gallant 
services and increasing honors. 

When at last the British surrendered the military posts of 
the North-west to the United States, Captain Harrison received 
and occupied them. 

On November 22, 1795, he married Miss Anna Symmes, 
the daughter of Judge Symmes of North Bend, Ohio, a young 
lady who is said to have had many charms of person and 



William Henry Harrison. 235 

fine qualities of character. The marriage proved one of last- 
ing affection and happiness. 

In 1797 Captain Harrison was appointed Secretary of the 
North-west Territory. A little later he was its delegate in 
Congress. 

In 1800 this vast area was divided into two parts. The 
western part, which included what now forms the States of 
Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, was then called " The In- 
diana Territory." Over this immense tract, as well as over 
that of Upper Louisiana, President Adams appointed William 
Henry Harrison Governor. " He was invested with almost 
dictatorial powers ; he was ruler over almost as extensive a 
realm as any sovereign upon earth." He still proved himself 
in the right place. He executed all the varied and trying 
duties of Governor of that vast frontier with such abihty 
and rigid integrity that Adams' successors, Jefferson and Mad- 
ison, re-appointed him. 

In his position and with his great power and influence he 
had immense " opportunities " to aggrandize himself ; but Gov- 
ernor Harrison's integrity was of the most flawless kind. In an 
ampler sketch this robust but delicate honesty could be illus- 
trated by many facts. 

The Governor lived at Vincennes, on the Wabash. In all 
that wide frontier, where he held gentle yet firm dominion over 
the rough, fierce backwoodsmen, there were only two other 
white settlements. 

The story of the Shawnee warrior, Tecumseh, and of his 
brother, the prophet, form a thrilling chapter in early Border 
history. Governor Harrison encountered in this subtle, power- 
ful, determined pair, his most dangerous foes. Maddened by 
the steady advance of the settlers, and by the cession of large 
tracts of Indian hunting-grounds, the two warriors resolved to 
rouse the tribes to a desperate and sanguinary war upon the 



2^6 Our Presidents. 



widely-scattered settlements. The brothers set about their 
work with all the Indian craft and cunning. They gained abso- 
lute control of the savages and inspired them with the fiercest 
enthusiasm, the most deadly vindictiveness. Governor Harri- 
son had by this time thoroughly learned the Indian character 
and habits. In various ways he gained more or less knowledge 
of the designs of the brothers. Tecumseh visited Vincennes 
with a large party of his braves, in order to have a council with 
the Governor. He had always professed friendship for the pale 
faces and a sincere desire for peace ; but during the council 
he threw off this mask. In fierce rage he told the Governor 
that he lied. Then a wild tumult ensued. The warriors bran- 
dished their war-clubs. Nothing but the superhuman courage 
and the unshaken nerves of the Governor saved his life at this 
critical moment. 

Meanwhile sickening work was going on among the scant 
settlements of the frontier. Revenge, patriotism, religious 
frenzy, were all kindled in the Indian breast. The war-whoop 
rang suddenly where it had never been heard before. Men, 
women, children, were butchered and houses burned. The 
dreadful stories were brought to Vincennes and promptly sent 
to Washington. At last the Government was forced to heed 
the cry of anguish which rose from all the Western Border. 
President Madison issued reluctant orders for the Governor to 
move against the savages. He marched with about a thousand 
troops for Tippecanoe, the prophet's town, October 28, 181 1. 

In the valley of the Tippecanoe, just on the edge of a chill 
November dawn, in the midst of a drizzling rain, the terrible 
war-whoop broke around the American camp fires. Before 
one of these, Governor Harrison sat in the midst of his aids. 
But he was too seasoned a soldier to be taken by surprise, 
though the fiendish yelling that rang through the woods might 
have made the strongest nerves shiver. The soldiers behaved 



William Henry Harrison, 237 



admirably. Tliey stood immovable until the day dawned and 
then charged with the bayonet. The savages broke and dis- 
persed, though their prophet stood upon a mound and chanted 
a song of victory. But the savages now discovered that he 
had deluded them and his spell was broken forever. 

Twenty-nine years later that battle of Tippecanoe was to 
become a great party rallying-cry throughout the land. 

Governor Harrison was forced soon afterward to encounter 
another foe. The " last war " with England opened, and the 
British descended from Canada upon the North-west. They 
brought with them their savage allies, who " roamed burning, 
plundering, scalping over the frontier." 

Those were dark days for America. General Hull surren- 
dered his forces at Detroit. President Madison promoted 
Governor Harrison Commander-in-chief of the North-western 
armies. " He was ordered to retake Detroit and protect the 
frontiers." 

These were tasks which might well tax a great military 
genius. The manner in which they were executed belongs to 
the history of the last war with England. 

It can only be said here that General Harrison succeeded, 
after almost incredible exertions, in raising from the scant pop- 
ulation of the North-west Border an army of rustic volunteers 
and militia, and marched them against the British veterans. 

Oil September 10, 18 14, Commodore Perry won his famous 
victory over the British fleet on Lake Erie. After the naval 
engagement General Harrison crossed the lake and dispatched 
a brigade to seize Detroit. He encountered the enemy on the 
banks of the Thames. He triumphed after a short, sharp 
action. Tecumseh, an ally of the British, met his death among 
his braves. The frontier was at peace once more. 

Not long afterward, General Harrison resigned his commis- 
sion. All his noble qualities — his courage, manliness, integrity 



2^8 Our Presidents. 



— did not prevent him from making many foes. General Jack- 
son never forgave him, because, while admitting and applauding 
his great achievements, Harrison could never fully approve of 
his high-handed proceedings in the Seminole war. 

In 1816 General Harrison was in Congress. He represented 
the District of Ohio. Before his election charges of corrupt 
dealings in connection with the commissariat had been made 
against him. He barely took his seat before he insisted that 
these charges should be thoroughly investigated. The result 
was his triumphant vindication. He was presented with a gold 
medal from Congress for his services. 

He had no remarkable oratorical gifts. His most effective 
speeches were those which he made on his beloved North-west. 
When he spoke of its interests, its increasing prosperity, the 
infinite promise of its future, the theme fired his soul and inspired 
his words, and at these times he would make a profound impres- 
sion on the house. 

In 18 1 9 he went to the Ohio Senate. In 1824 he was one 
of the presidential electors and voted for Henry Clay. That 
year he went to the United States Senate. In 1828 General 
Harrison was appointed by President Adams Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary to the Republic of Colombia. In a letter to BoHvar, 
who was his friend, he eloquently entreated him not to accept 
the dictatorship. 

" To be eminently great it is necessary to be eminently 
good," wrote this Hero of the North-west battle-fields. 

Andrew Jackson succeeded John Quincy Adams in the pres- 
idency, and General Harrison was soon recalled from his South 
American mission. He returned to his farm at North Bend 
and settled down to agriculture with the satisfaction of George 
Washington or Thomas Jefferson. His income was very limited, 
although he might probably have been at that time the richest 
man in the United States. But his honor was of that sensitive 



William Henry Harrison. 239 

quality which would never allov/ him to reap any personal advan- 
tage from the many opportunities which, during his public life, 
had come in his way. 

General Harrison was one of the kindliest, most humane of 
men. His moral instincts were fine and true. He afforded an 
admirable example of temperance ; he was a foe to dueling. 
When the Virginian was accused of attachment to slavery, he 
answered, " I have been the means of liberating many slaves, 
but never placed one in bondage." 

In 1836 General Harrison's friends nominated him for the 
presidency. Van Buren, however, won the election. The 
terrible financial crash of 1837 followed, and in 1840 an unex- 
ampled canvass shook the country. It was called "the log- 
cabin and hard cider campaign." The home of General 
Harrison at North Bend consisted, on its eastern side, of a log- 
cabin, built by one of the early Ohio settlers, but it had long 
since been comfortably clapboarded. He lived with much sim- 
plicity, and hard cider held on his board the place which costly 
v.'ines did on other tables of that day. Hence the significance 
of the party watch-words. 

The North Bend farmer, the old Hero of the frontier, the 
Whig candidate, carried the election. 

The new President, now sixty-eight, was erect and vigorous. 
He had a long, thin face, with irregular features, and his eyes 
were pleasant and kindly as a woman's. 

But his hand had barely grasped the helm when it relaxed. 
He was attacked by pneumonia, and the iron strength which 
had borne all the hardships of the frontier succumbed in the 
softer life. There were a few days of violent illness. Then 
the end came. President Harrison's last words, uttered in de- 
lirium and amid the shadows of approaching death, soon had 
an ominous significance. He appeared to imagine he was ad- 
dressing his successor when he exclaimed : " Sir, I wish you to 



240 Our Presidents. 



understand the principles of the government. I wish thern 
carried out. I ask nothing more. " 

General Harrison's character did honor to human nature. 
" He was not," it has been said, '* a great man, but he had 
lived in a great time, and had been a leader in great things." 
The brave, noble spirit went to its rest April 4, 1841. The 
nation mourned for its dead President with a grief akin to 
that with which another generation had mourned for George 
Washington. 





tfiyrL 





u 



JOHN TYLER. 

On April 6, 1841, John Tyler became President of the 
United States. Two days before, William Henry Harrison had 
died in the executive mansion. The country, settling down 
into quiet after the most passionate of political canvasses, was 
suddenly stricken by a thunderbolt. Grief and dismay filled 
the heart of the nation. It was impossible to forecast the po- 
litical future, or to estimate the extent of the calamity which 
had fallen upon the land. 

It was the first time since the existence of the government 
that a President had died in office and the vice-President had 
succeeded to his place. It must have seemed to the lately tri- 
umphant Whigs that everything in their political world was 
falling to pieces. They could have found little encouragement 
in recalling the political record of the Vice-President or the 
circumstances of his election. Everybody knew that he had 
been nominated to placate the Southern party, disappointed 
and resentful that its great leader, Henry Clay, had been de- 
feated. The vice-Presidency had not seemed at the time a 
costly sop to Cerberus. It included, of course, honor and high 
place, but there was a popular impression that the nation's 
second office carried with it little intrinsic authority. So John 
Tyler of Virginia was sent to the vice-Presidency, and the South 
was more or less mollified. 

But in that April of 1841, the country, after a half century 
of growth and prosperity, had a new lesson to learn with Death 
for the inexorable teacher. It was brought face to face v/ith 
the fact that the vice-President might suddenly become the 
most important personage in the nation. 
t6 



242 Ovr Presideufs. 



President Harrison's death must have been a cruel blow, 
coming so soon upon the hardly-won " log-cabin campaign." 
The old hero of the North-west Border lay dead in the White 
House, while the air about him was still tremulous with victory 
and with the triumphs of the inaugural. And now men were 
thinking with doubt and foreboding of the Virginian who was 
on his way from Williamsburg to Washington to take the oath 
of office which dead lips had lately spoken. 

John Tyler had been born in Charles City, Virginia, March 
29, 1790. He came of the old planter class, with its wealth 
and culture and high social distinction. All good fortunes 
smiled upon his birth and early years. His father had been a 
stanch patriot of the old Virginia type and was at one time 
Speaker of the Continental Congress. 

The younger John proved himself a bright boy and devel- 
oped a remarkable gift for scholarship in the happy old home, 
under the careful parental training. At twelve he entered Wil- 
liam and Mary College, at seventeen he graduated with honor. 
It was a matter of course that he should follow in his father's 
footsteps and prepare himself for the bar. He studied in the 
elder's law office and enjoyed rare opportunities to equip him- 
self for his profession. At nineteen he began to practice and 
had marked success. 

Young Tyler had been brought up in the Jefferson and 
Madison political creed. It was a matter of course that he 
should become prominent in political life. For five successive 
years the almost unanimous vote of his county sent him to the 
State Legislature. 

Young Tyler had won a high reputation as a lawyer before 

the last war with England was declared. His inherited patri- 

^otism now spurred him to take part in the contest. When 

the British ravaged the Chesapeake shores he set vigorous mili- 

tarv movements on foot to resist them. 



John Tyler. -43 

At twenty-six he went to Congress, where he showed him- 
self a thorough-going advocate of the Jeffersonian policy. The 
young member had a face of marked character. His long, thin 
features expressed intellectual force as well as resolution. His 
manners, with their social polish and grace, could not fail to be 
attractive, and he added to these the charm of his native wit 
and his kindly heart. 

At twenty-three John Tyler made a marriage, which proved 
one of great harmony and happiness, with Miss Letitia Chris- 
tian, a young lady of Cedar Grove, Virginia. The newly- 
married pair settled at Greenway, on a part of the Tyler estate. 
Mr. Tyler left Congress to take his seat once more in the 
Virginia Legislature. In 1825 he was elected Governor of his 
native State, and young as he was, and powerful as were his 
competitors, he was re-elected to the office. 

Afterward he went to the Senate. Despite his brilliant 
career he was not an orator, but he was a powerful and impres- 
sive debater. He distinguished himself in the Senate by his 
vigorous hostility to John Quincy Adams's administration. 

But as time went on, the Virginia Senator became more and 
more opposed to Andrew Jackson's policy. The former, with 
his State-rights sympathies, viewed with indignation what he 
regarded as the President's unjustifiable and autocratic meas- 
ures. Mr. Tyler would not support the war on the United 
States Bank, which the relentless Jackson had resolved to carry 
to the bitter end. There were various social and personal mat- 
ters mixed up with this period of the administration which can- 
not be gone into here. Mr. Tyler, who was at heart an ardent 
disciple of Calhoun, now found himself often voting in accord 
with Henry Clay when the latter opposed the high-handed 
Executive. But the harmony between the State-rights Vir- 
ginian and the imperious and devoted Kentucky Unionist, 
though it v/as to have results of great national importance, did 



244 Our Presidents. 



not reach below the surface of things. Mr. Tyler supported 
the censure of the President's measures in the Senate. Jackson 
was not the man to forget or forgive this. It must be sufficient 
to say that Mr. Tyler, on his re-election to the Senate, found it 
advisable to resign his seat. 

After he had returned to his home he removed to Williams- 
burg, where his Alma Mater was situated and where his chil- 
dren could enjoy better opportunities for study. No doubt he 
reflected with pride upon his brilliant career in law and in poli- 
tics, and had an agreeable consciousness that his native State 
had bestowed on him her highest honors. 

Mr. Tyler still cherished and avowed all the principles of 
the political school in which he had been trained. He never 
broke from the old moorings of State Rights and Free Trade. 
But amid the Avrangling and complicated political antagonisms 
and personal hostilities of the time, he was widely regarded as a 
Southern Whig, and it was the votes of Northern Whigs which, 
in the famous " log-cabin canvass," sent John Tyler, the Cal- 
houn disciple, to the vice-Presidency. 

The dead President lay at the White House when, early in 
the morning of April 5, 1841, a swift messenger brought the 
momentous tidings to John Tyler, who was at his quiet home in 
Williamsburg. 

The next day he was at Washington and took his oath of 
office. It is a significant fact that there was some demur 
amongst the Cabinet of illustrious men whom his predecessor 
had appointed, about his receiving the full title of President. 

Mr. Tyler understood perfectly the grounds of this hesi- 
tancy. The Cabinet had strong doubts regarding his future 
political attitude. But the President assumed his new title and 
duties with his characteristic resolution, and the Constitution 
sustained him. 

The day of trial had come for John Tyler. The Virginia 



John Tyler. 245 

Jefferson Democrat had been placed at a most critical period 
of America's history at the country's helm. New and over- 
shadowing issues were now steadily advancing into the political 
foreground. The annexation of Texas was beginning to arrest 
public attention ; the air was growing hot with the great Anti- 
slavery contest ; the exciting question of a National Bank Bill 
had soon to be met. 

The new President showed plainly by his first measures his 
desire to promote harmony in his administration. He attempted 
to retain the Cabinet of his predecessor. 

But the antagonisms between his principles and those of the 
party to which he owed his election were radical and admitted 
of no compromise. The separation v/hich speedily occurred 
took place under circumstances which aroused the implacable 
hostility of his former supporters. 

Mr. Tyler's position was not an enviable one. An honorable 
man could not fail to perceive that the Whig party had strong 
reasons for feeling that he had betrayed them. Yet he could 
not advocate their measures without doing violence to the 
deepest convictions of a life-time. 

The test came with the Bank Bill. It was twice prepared, 
and twice carried through Congress, and twice received the 
veto of the President. 

The wrath of the Whigs was unbounded. They denounced 
the President in the fiercest language which disappointment 
and passion could suggest. The triumphant Democrats ap- 
plauded him. 

The administration proved a gloomy and unfortunate one. 

Mr. Tyler made, it must be admitted, various efforts to con- 
cilate those whom ho had so deeply offended ; but he did not 
succeed. He was a strong advocate of slavery, and here he 
came into direct contact with the feelings and moral convic- 
tions of a powerful and steadily increasing party at the North. 



246 Our Presidents. 



The President incurred much opprobrium among ofifice- 
seekers by his refusal to make removals on merely political 
grounds. Many of the men appointed in previous administra- 
tions, ** were his personal acquaintances, and had grown gray in 
the service." The President was a man of kindly heart and he 
said, justifying himself for not deposing the old public servants : 
" I cannot bear to have their wives and children come to me 
with accounts of their suffering when I can help it." 

One wishes that Andrew Jackson could sometimes have 
been conscious of the same feeling. But "Old Hickory," the 
most generous of men in many respects, always regarded an 
opponent as a creature to be summarily dealt with, whether he 
was John Quincy Adams with his culture and statesmanship, or 
a Seminole brave with his paint and war-plumes. 

Personal griefs added their gloom to Mr. Tyler's stormy 
administration. His wife died at the White House Septem- 
ber 10, 1842. 

Seventeen months later the terrible tragedy happened on 
board the Princeton, by which the President lost, among other 
friends, Abel P. Upshur, the young and brilliant Secretary of 
State who had succeeded Daniel Webster. 

The President must have experienced great relief when his 
term closed, and he could retire to Virginia and the rest and 
freedom of his home at Sherwood Forest. He brought a young 
and accomplished wife to preside there. On June 26, 1844, 
he had married in New York Miss Julia Gardner, whose father 
had been killed by the explosion on the Princeton. 

Under his own roof the ex-President could indulge his 
scholarly tastes and dispense his agreeable hospitalities, while 
he still took a profound interest in public affairs. 

At last the civil war broke. Mr. Tyler at first threw his 
influence on the side of the union element in Virginia. He 
went to Washington and presided at the Peace Congress in 



John Tyler. 247 

Willard's Hall, which was held just before the inaugural of 
Abraham Lincoln. 

But it was too late to arrest the march of events. Mr. 
Tyler must have returned home a wiser and a sadder man. 
He had failed in his efforts to preserve the Union, and now he 
threw in his fortunes with those of his State, and the ex-Presi- 
dent became a member of the Confederate Congress. It is not 
pleasant to record this. But John Tyler was an old man now, 
and the excitements and anxieties of that time must have worn 
heavily upon him. His health gradually broke and he died 
January 18, 1862. 



JAMES KNOX POLK. 

One can hardly read the name of James K. Polk without 
thinking of Andrew Jackson. The two came of that robust 
old Scotch-Irish breed which, during the last century, sent so 
many of its representatives to clear their farms and build their 
homes among the vast wildernesses of the Carolinas. They 
were a sturdy, resolute, freedom-loving race. They made their 
mark deep and strong on that new world where they settled. 

The younger man's ancestors came first, for the two Polk 
brothers had settled on the eastern bank of the Catawba in the 
second quarter of the last century, while the Jacksons made 
their clearing on the Waxhaw creek, a branch of the Catawba, 
thirty years later. 

James K. Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North 
Carolina, November 2, 1795. He was more than twenty-eight 
years the junior of Andrew Jackson ; but the families of the 
two must have had strong neighborhood associations. When 
Cornwallis's troops burst ravaging into the Waxhaw settlement, 
Mrs. Jackson fled with her fatherless boys to Mecklenburg 
county, and found shelter for a while with neighbors of the 
Polks. All this was to be of consequence more than half a 
century afterward, 

James's father was a farmer, "a simple, unpretending man." 
The mother, Jane Knox, is said to have been a superior woman. 
When James was about eleven, the father removed with his 
young family to the West and settled in a rich valley on Duck 
River in East Tennessee. The Polks were in a log-cabin in the 
primeval wilderness, and they had of course to encounter the 




// 



James Knox Polk. 249 



hard fortunes and fight the brave battle of the pioneers. Be- 
fore long the new comers were joined by others, kindred and 
neighbors, from North CaroHna. The farm clearings grew 
more frequent in the lonely wilderness along the Duck River 
banks. The elder Polk became a surveyor ana a man of influ- 
ence in the scant neighborhood. He made long surveying tours, 
on which he took his eldest son James, a bright, rather frail boy, 
who must have been excellent company, and who no doubt had 
fine times, helping to build the camp-fires and cook the game 
at nights in the Tennessee woods. James went to the common 
schools of that day and acquired the rudiments of an English 
education. He was fond of study and early set his heart on 
having a thorough mental training ; but his father, in doubt 
whether his son's health would endure the strain of a long course 
of study, placed him in a store. 

Life behind the counter was thoroughly distasteful to the 
boy, and after a few weeks the elder Polk relented, and the 
younger was thereafter permitted to follow his own bent. He 
found his true place at Murfreesborough Academy, where he 
studied industriously for the next two years and a half. 

In 18 15 he entered the Sophomore class of the North Caro- 
lina University at Chapel Hill. Here he was a strenuous student, 
and graduated the best scholar of his class. He was twenty- 
three now, and his diligent study had shaken his health. 

As soon as he recovered he went to Nashville, and began to 
study for the bar. The most famous man in Tennessee at this 
time was " Old Hickory," the hero of New Orleans. He was 
in the habit of visiting the law office of Felix Grundy, where 
young Polk was studying. The Hermitage was only a few miles 
from Nashville. The law student, like Andrew Jackson, had 
come from North Carolina and belonged to the same Scotch - 
Irish race. The younger man was brought thoroughly under 
the influence of that powerful fascinating personality. It existed 



250 Our Presidents. 



until it was broken by death, and profoundly affected the char- 
acter and public career of James Polk. 

He was duly admitted to the bar, and he returned to Colum- 
bia, in the " Duck River District," and began the legal practice 
for which he had so thoroughly equipped himself. Business, 
fortune, honors, fell to him rapidly. 

James Polk had been brought up in the Jefferson school 
of politics and he followed the parental teachings. He grew 
into wide popularity as a political speaker and won the flat- 
tering title of the " Napoleon of the stump." Yet it is need- 
less to say that the genial, courteous and cultivated lawyer, bore 
neither in character nor temperament the slightest resemblance 
to the frery, imperious Corsican. 

In 1823 Mr. Polk went to the Tennessee Legislature. It 
was a matter of course that he should enter with all the ardor 
and energy of young manhood into the canvass of 1824, which 
inflamed the whole country when Andrew Jackson and John 
Quincy Adams were candidates for the presidency. 

It is much to Mr. Polk's honor that he secured at this time 
the passage of a bill to prevent dueling. 

In 1824 I'^e was married to Miss Sarah Childless of Ten- 
nessee. It was a happy marriage. Mrs. Polk was a lady of 
fine character and of many personal charms. During her 
husband's presidency she filled with simple, gracious dignity, 
the highest position which an American woman can occupy. 
She still lives, honored and beloved, in her quiet home at 
Nashville, and amid memories which reach far back to the 
morning of the century. 

In 1825 Mr. Polk was elected to Congress. He was a mem- 
ber for fourteen years, a fact which affords a strong proof of 
his popularity with his constituents. He was an industrious 
member, "a frequent and popular speaker," although despite 
the old comparison between him and Bonaparte he had no 



James Knox Polk. 251 



striking oratorical gifts, and enjoyed no high distinction among 
his brilliant colleagues as a parliamentary debater. 

His convictions made him a Democrat of the most thorough- 
going type. He was, as a necessary consequence, opposed to 
all the measures of John Quincy Adams's administration. 

When General Jackson succeeded to the presidency Mr. 
Polk, who had now acquired much influence in Congress, 
stanchly defended the old soldier, although some of his meas- 
ures rocked the country like an earthquake. 

During five sessions Mr. Polk was Speaker of the House, 
where he must have witnessed many a stormy political scene. 
He was by nature amiable and courteous, but his strong pro- 
slavery sentiments no doubt lay at the bottom of much of his 
alarm lest the National Government should acquire too great 
control over the States. He was always a strenuous upholder 
of their rights and authority, and was always at watch lest the 
central power should overstep the lines within which, as he 
interpreted the Constitution, it was limited. 

Jackson's famous administration closed with Van Buren's 
accession. Mr. Polk ardently supported the latter in his cam- 
paign ; but in 1839 he resigned his seat in the House to become 
the candidate for Governor of Tennessee. He was elected and 
served for two years. 

Then the Whigs had their day. After the famous canvass 
of 1840, another Virginian, General William Henry Harrison, 
took his seat in the executive chair. In the political revulsion 
of that time Mr. Polk was defeated in the Tennessee canvass 
for Governor. 

It is amusing to read that " he and his Whig competitor 
canvassed the State together, actually driving in the same car- 
riage and sleeping in the same bed." 

Mr. Polk suffered another defeat when he had the same 
rival in 1843. 



252 Our Presidents. 



But his day of triumph was at hand. The great question of 
the annexation of Texas superseded every other in American 
politics. The country was aflame with excitement. Every one 
who desired the extension of pro-slavery territory was eager for 
the annexation of the immense southern area, which would 
afford material for several slave states. 

Mr. Polk vigorously supported annexation. This fact, and 
the influence of Andrew Jackson, whose old age and whose 
growing physical prostration had not weakened his iron will, 
and who was still a power in American politics, secured the nom- 
ination of James K. Polk for the presidency. He was elected, 
and his inauguration took place March 4, 1845. 

Texas was annexed to the Union, and as a necessary corollary 
the war with Mexico followed. President Polk sustained it with 
all the authority and resources of his administration. It was a 
foregone conclusion that the American army would, in the long 
run,^be victorious. It was an unequal contest ; but the Mex- 
icans, when the war was brought to their very hearthstones, 
fought with the bravery of desperation. American soldiers 
were certain to behave gallantly, though they did it in a bad 
cause. Mexico was conquered at last, and the " stars and 
stripes " waved triumphantly over her capital. 

Mr. Polk felt no doubt that he had achieved a splendid suc- 
cess when the treaty of peace was at last concluded between 
the two nations, and the United States, partly by war, partly by 
purchase, had acquired possession of the vast Southwestern 
areas of New Mexico and California. 

Mr. Polk retired from office at the close of his first term. 
His abilities were not of a commanding order. But he had suc- 
ceeded in the central aim of his administration. He imme- 
diately made a journey to the far South, and the honors and 
ovations which continually greeted him must have made all 
the way like a triumphal progress. He was still in the prime 



James Knox Polk. 253 



of his life, only fifty-four. The years must have seemed to 
stretch long and pleasant before him. His home, a beautiful 
mansion on Grundy's hill, in the midst of pleasant grounds at 
Nashville, awaited him. He had large wealth and ample leisure 
in which to cultivate his scholarly tastes and enjoy the domestic 
companionship so precious to him. But the end was close at 
hand. The cholera was in the air that summer. The ex-Presi- 
dent, who had at times suffered from malaria, felt the touch of 
a deadlier pestilence as he passed up the river from New Orleans 
to Nashville. 

Yet the slender, erect figure, with the eager, scholarly face, 
which had no look of age under " the floating gray hair," was 
seen for awhile in the library, the lawn, about the grounds. All 
the old interest and energy were in Mr. Polk's look and manner 
as that May passed into June. 

Then he succumbed to the subtle disease. It sapped his 
vitality, and when it was conquered at last it left him with no 
forces to rally. So he had to go from the beloved wife, from 
the beautiful home, from the cherished friendships and all the 
glories and honors of a life that was still in its prime. 

He received baptism and sank peacefully into death, June 
18, 1849. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR. 

There are several brilliant chapters in the story of this 
man's military career. Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Mon- 
terey, are names that must be forever associated with his cour- 
age and valor, but the light of history shines clearest and 
strongest upon the figure of the old soldier on a single day 
and scene. The day is that of February 22, 1847. The 
scene is the battle of Buena Vista. 

Yet it is no grand martial figure which one sees at the head 
of the scant American forces' on that raw, dismal winter's day. 
It is a short, rather dumpy figure which stands on a height 
that commands a view of the plateau near the small ham- 
let of Buena Vista, where the desperate battle is going on 
between Santa Anna's army of twenty thousand Mexicans and 
the American forces of five thousand. In this disparity of num- 
bers lay, of course, the peril for the Americans. Santa Anna 
had come upon the little army when it was on the march, about 
fifty miles south of Monterey. 

General Taylor's kind, honest, blunt-featured face was full 
of anxiety as he stood on the eminence, and overlooked the 
scene of that terrible fighting. The members of his staff, 
seeing the deadly peril to which their Chief was exposed, 
begged him to retire, but he refused to stir. The brave heart 
had not quailed when the Mexican host first came in sight, and 
poured in like the waves of the sea and almost surrounded the 
American forces. A dauntless soul was in the dumpy body 
of their commander. The Mexican General, confident and tri- 
umphant in the midst of his hosts, had, before the action 





c>c^^ 




^-^' 



Zachary Taylor. 255 



began, sent a messenger, with a flag of truce and a stern sum- 
mons to surrender, to the American outposts. 

" General Taylor never surrenders," was all the reply sent 
back to Santa Anna's summons. The words were spoken by a 
man who never wasted any, and they had a sublime courage, 
uttered in the face of the twenty thousand Mexicans who had 
at that time nearly surrounded the Americans. 

General Taylor was not the man to make hght of the 
peril or underrate the strength of the foe. He had made the 
best possible disposition of his small forces. After the mes- 
senger had disappeared, the General rode along the ranks and 
said to his troops, " Soldiers, I intend to stand here, not only 
so long as a man remains, but so long as a. piece of a man is 
left." 

Soon after that speech the battle of Buena Vista began. 

It lasted for ten hours. It should be remembered that 
General Taylor's forces, with the exception of about five hun- 
dred, were volunteers, and that many of them had never before 
been under fire. During that terrible day it often seemed as 
though Santa Anna's Mexicans would carry everything before 
them. They fought under the eyes of their fierce commander 
with the courage of desperation. They fought, too, for their 
soil and their firesides. They charged along the American lines 
with an impetuous fury which it seemed nothing could resist. 
But they encountered that old Anglo-Saxon valor that had 
plucked victory at vast odds on so many historic battle-fields. 
The old pluck held its own now. When the dark closed about 
the ten hours' fight, seven hundred Americans, and about two 
thousand Mexicans, lay dead and wounded on the plateau of 
Buena Vista. 

The night that followed was full of doubt and anxiety for 
General Taylor and his troops. Neither army had won a 
decided victory, and there was every prospect that the fight 



256 Our Presidents. 



would be renewed in the morning. The tired troops, drenched 
and shivering, had no camp-fires through that long winter night. 
But when the morning broke Santa Anna had disappeared with 
his Mexicans. 

With the battle of Buena Vista, General Taylor's military- 
career in Mexico virtually closed. Laurels on other fields 
awaited him now. But he would never have won them had it 
not been for that winter's day on the plateau of Buena Vista. 

Zachary Taylor was born November 24, 1784, in Orange 
County, Virginia. His father, Colonel Richard Taylor, had 
been a stanch patriot and soldier of the Revolution. After the 
war closed he yielded to the attraction which at that period 
drew so many Virginians to the Western frontier. Zachary was 
an infant when his father and mother with their three children 
left the old home, and set out through the solitary wildernesses 
to make a new one in Kentucky. 

They were one of the first settlers at a point only a few 
miles from the present city of Louisville. 

Zachary's boyhood and youth were passed amid all the hard- 
ships and limitations of the frontier. If his early life was full 
of picturesque and eventful scenes, they have escaped his 
biographers. At six he went to school, but any mental train- 
ing he received must have been of the most meager kind. 
He grew up, however, sturdy, active, resolute and self-reliant. 
Nature had her own designs in his make-up, but she had not 
meant him for a scholar. 

Zachary, bred on the Kentucky frontier, must have had 
his soul early fired by stories of the savages who were then rav- 
aging the border settlements with torch and tomahawk. Tales 
of this kind would be sure to strengthen any drawings he might 
feel for a soldier's life. His father was a man of honor and 
influence in the growing Kentucky settlement. When the son 
was about twenty-four, the elder succeeded in obtaining a 



Zachary Taylor. 257 



lieutenancy for him in the United States army. He went to 
New Orleans to join the troops, and soon afterward married 
Miss Margaret Smith, a young lady of one of the old Maryland 
families. 

The " last war " with England brought to the surface the 
born soldier in Zachary Taylor. General Harrison on his fam- 
ous march to the Tippecanoe, had built a fort on the Wabash, 
about fifty miles above his home at Vincennes. Captain Tay- 
lor — he had been promoted by this time — had been placed in 
command at Fort Harrison. The rude work consisted merely 
" of a row of log huts with a strong block house at each 
end." 

In the early autumn of 181 2, the shrewd, crafty Tecumseh, 
an ally of the English, led his braves to a night attack on 
Fort Harrison. The scene had all the unutterable horror of 
an Indian surprise. The savages with their blood-curdling war- 
whoops burst from the forest upon the small garrison of fifty 
men — a large part of them invalids — and surrounded the fort. 
They fired one of the block houses, and its flames glared over 
the dancing, howling Indians. In the garrison women listened 
with sickening hearts to the unearthly sounds. The men, 
invalids and all, came to the defense with splendid courage, 
and at six o'clock in the morning the little garrison saw the 
savages, howling with baffled rage, disappear in the wilder- 
ness. 

Captain Taylor was made a major-general by brevet for 
his gallant defense of Fort Harrison. 

The war closed between England and America without 
affording much active service to young Taylor. He was after- 
ward ordered to the frontier. *' At Fort Crawford, on the Fox 
River, which enters into Green Bay," the brave, resolute spirit 
l)assed years of his young manhood. He was in the depths of 
the wilderness. On that remote northwest border he had few 
17 



• 



25S Our Presidents. 



opportunities for social enjoyment or mental cultivation. One 
fancies the years must have seemed long and lonely as they 
rolled over him. He was fortunate in having a brave and ten- 
der wife who shared uncomplainingly all the privations and 
hardships of the Border, who never pined for the softer life of 
her youth, and whose devotion must have lightened all the sol- 
dier's cares. 

In 1832 a change came to this solitary life. Colonel Tay- 
lor — his promotions had not been rapid, but he at last gained 
this title — had an efficient part in the Black Hawk war. In 
this famous campaign against the redoubtable Indian chief there 
served under Taylor a tall, gaunt-framed young Illinois cap- 
tain, whose name was Abraham Lincoln. Colonel Taylor dis- 
played the qualities of a born commander in his pursuit of 
Black Hawk. When he reached Rock River his tired and 
rebellious troops refused to cross the stream which formed the 
northv/est boundary of Illinois. They had volunteered, they 
insisted, only for the defense of their State. 

Colonel Taylor was a man of few words, but he always 
understood his orders. These had been " to follow up Black 
Hawk to the last extremity." He listened quietly for a while 
to the angry remonstrances of his troops, and then coolly 
informed them of orders he had received the night before from 
Washington, to take his soldiers and pursue Black Hawk. " I 
intend to do both," he concluded. " There are the flat boats 
drawn up on the shore ; here are Uncle Sam's men drawn up 
behind you on the prairie ! " 

This was a sort of argument there was no resisting. Gen- 
eral Taylor and his volunteers were soon across the Rock River 
and making a swift dash for the foe. 

For twenty-four years Zachary Taylor's military service was 
the defense of the frontier. It must have seemed a thankless 
task, though it was one of immense cares and responsibilities. It 



Zachary Taylor. ^59 



demanded unceasing vigilance, prompt action in emergencies, 
and boundless courage. 

In 1837 General Taylor was ordered to march against the 
Seminoles. The causes which produced the war do not form 
a gratifying chapter in American history. The Seminoles felt 
that they had been grievously wronged by the pale-faces, and 
they took the revenge of the weak and the savage. 

Colonel Taylor conducted the campaign with bravery and 
skill. His troops were worthy of their commander. They held 
the fierce and desperate savages at bay in interior wilderness, 
and among the everglades of Florida. But there was a wide 
feeling throughout the nation that the war was unjust and 
that its victories could hardly reflect glory upon American 

arms. 

Colonel Taylor won the title of brigadier-general by brevet, 
served two years in Florida, then, wearied and disgusted, 
obtained at his own request a change to the Department of the 
Southwest, which embraced Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama 
and Georgia. " He estabUshed his headquarters at Louisiana, 
and bought a plantation at Baton Rouge." To this quiet, 
pleasant retreat he removed his family. He had a home at 
last, in the real meaning of that word. He saw his brave wife's 
eyes grow glad with the light of their youth, as they rested on 
the fair, Southern landscape, and on the flowers that under her 
care made a world of briUiant bloom about her. In the South- 
west Department General Taylor spent the next five years. 
His post was remote and did not bring him much honor, but 
he fulfilled all its responsibilities in his old, vigilant way. 

In 1845 Texas was annexed to the Union. The inevitable 
consequence— trouble with Mexico— followed promptly. 

General Taylor's part in the trouble was the soldier's, not 
the statesman's. It was his duty, as he interpreted it, simply 
to obey orders ; so he crossed the Nueces, marched two hun- 



26o Our Presidents. 

dred miles over what the Mexicans regarded as their territor)', 
and established himself upon the eastern bank of the Rio 
Grande, opposite Matamoras. Every patriotic Mexican who 
looked across the river and saw the stars and stripes floating 
over Fort Brown, must have felt, as any American would, if a 
hostile army were to encamp on the east bank of the Hudson. 

All this, however. General Taylor regarded as a matter 
wholly out of his province. His sole business was to do his 
soldier's duty. 

Of course under such provocation war, sooner or later, was 
inevitable. A Mexican force crossed the Rio Grande. They 
attacked a squadron of United States dragoons ordered to 
watch them. The war had opened ! 

General Taylor's day had come at last. If the cause was 
bad, he and his troops did not fight less bravely for their flag 
and their country. The victories of Palo Alto, of Resaca de la 
Palma, the taking of Monterey, brought the name, which had 
been buried so long on the western frontier, to the knowledge 
of the nation. It was on everybody's lips. Stories which 
struck the popular imagination were related of Zachary Tay- 
lor's heroism, of his homely simplicity of manners and tastes, 
and of his honest, straightforward, kindly nature. His troops 
called him " Old Rough and Ready." The homely, humorous 
phrase caught the popular fancy, as " Old Hickory " had long 
before. 

The martial temper of the country was aroused by tidings 
of triumphs v/on for the Stars and Stripes on Mexican ground. 
The gallant youth of the nation hurried to reinforce the armies 
which were invading foreign soil. It must be said for the 
Mexicans, that whatever their faults were, they proved them- 
selves capable of fighting bravely for their land and their 
homes ; but in the end superior strength ai:d skill were sure to 
prevail. 



Zachary Taylor. 261 

The battle of Buena Vista closed the military career of 
General Taylor. After a time he returned home in a blaze of 
glory. 

At this crisis there was very serious disagreement among 
the leaders of the Whig party. They could not unite on a 
nomination for the presidency, though they had a list of brill- 
iant statesmen from which to select a candidate. 

The idea suddenly struck some of the political leaders to 
seize this flood-tide of popularity, and nominate the old front- 
ier soldier. General Taylor, in his boundless astonishment, at 
first declined, and at last consented to accept, the nomination. 
The party managers now took possession of him, prepared his 
few communications to the public — he was not used to the plat- 
form nor given to the pen — conducted the campaign success- 
fully, and Zachary Taylor was, in 1848, triumphantly elected 
President of the United States. 

It was not an easy post for the brave, simple old soldier. 
Surrounded by all the splendors of the White House and 
burdened with novel cares and responsibilities, he, no doubt, 
often longed for the freedom and homeliness of his old camp- 
life on the frontier. 

But amid the many perplexing and harassing duties which 
were now forced on him, he showed a surprising grasp of 
affairs, and much of the statesman's intuition and large, patri- 
otic temper. 

But he was barely permitted to manifest his new aims — his 
unsuspected qualities. A sudden cold seized the old veteran, 
who had borne unharmed all the hardships and exposures of the 
military life of the frontier. The cold settled into an illness 
which after five days ended his life. 

His last words were : " I am not afraid to die. I am ready 
to do my duty." In those simple, characteristic words, Zach- 
ary Taylor had expressed the real purpose of his life. 



262 Our Presidents. 

So the kindly, honest, faithful old soldier left the world, in 
which he had struggled to do his part simply and manfully. 
The country he had loved and served bestowed on him at last 
her highest gift ; but Death, whose claim is always supreme, 
called Zachary Taylor from his place, when he had occupied it 
a little more than sixteen months. He died July 9, 1850. 






''^Co.^t^lj yCoi^^^^ 



MILLARD FILLMORE. 

On July 9, 1850, Millard Fillmore became President of the 
United States. He went to his post, the successor of Zachary 
Taylor, the sturdy old soldier-President, who had won his 
proudest laurels at the battle of Buena Vista. The nation was 
plunged in grief at his sudden death. The man whose youth 
and prime had been passed on the solitary western frontier and 
among the Florida everglades, on ceaseless guard against the 
savages, had shown a sound judgment and a broad statesman- 
like comprehension of political issues which had inspired wide 
confidence in his administration. But now that " Old Rough 
and Ready's " strong, honest hand had dropped from the helm 
it had held for sixteen months, there was a general feeling of 
dismay. 

Millard Fillmore must have been conscious of this, and he 
could have had little sense of exultation as he took his oath of 
office and seated himself in the vacant executive chair. He 
was born at Summer Hill, Cayuga County, New York, when the 
present century was only seven days old. He came of a brave, 
stanch ancestry which had planted themselves in the Massa- 
chusetts Colony. His mother was a native of the same State, 
and was a woman of character and intelligence. 

The Fillmores emigrated to the western wildernesses of 
New York State late in the last century. They had the hard 
lot, the straitened means of the pioneers. Millard's home was 
of the humblest, and his opportunities were of the scantiest. 
A boy who came of an old New England race went, as a mat- 
ter of course, to such common schools as his neighborhood 



264 Our Presidents. 



afforded ; but his lack of early advantages can be best illus- 
trated by the fact that, in his early years, the household library 
consisted of but two volumes, and one of these was a Bible and 
the other a hymn-book. 

The farm did not prove a great success, and the elder 
Fillmore resolved that his son should have a trial, at least, at 
some other business than that of cultivating the soil. Millard 
was sent at fourteen a hundred miles from home, to try his 
hand for a few months at " carding wool and dressing cloth." 
His employer proved hard and severe, and when the months 
had expired Millard " shouldered his knapsack," with its bread 
and dried venison, and set out on foot for home, a hundred 
miles off, through the primeval wilderness. He must have had 
high pluck to do that. 

He appears to have worked for the next four years at the 
clothier's trade. It is significant that " the first book he pur- 
chased with his own money was a small English dictionary, 
which he studied while attending the carding machine." But 
his mind was awake and alert at this formative period. He had 
access to a small village library, and he made the most of it. 
He devoured "history and biography." 

As time went on and he grew more eager for knowledge, a 
purpose also grew in his soul to make something of himself. At 
nineteen these kindling ambitions urged him to study for the 
law. He was so thoroughly in earnest in this matter that he 
gave up a year's wages, besides paying his employer thirty dol- 
lars, a sum which represented vastly more at that period than 
it does now. 

Millard set himself resolutely at his legal studies " with a 
retired country lawyer." He paid for his board by his services 
in the law office. In the winters he taught school. He had 
certainly used the village library to good purpose. Young Fill- 
more was at this time a youth of remarkably attractive personal 



Millard Fillmore. 265 



appearance. The grace and polish of manner which were con- 
spicuous throughout his lite, already distinguished him. 

At twenty-one he went to Buffalo and entered a law office, 
" where he had the best of advantages." He studied with untir- 
ing zeal, and supported himself chiefly by teaching school. It 
was a brave struggle and it was sure to win at the last. 

The long upward climb began when the century and Millard 
Fillmore were twenty-three. At that time he was admitted to 
the Court of Common Pleas He began his practice in the 
pretty little village of Aurora. He won his first case, for which 
he received four dollars. Probably he felt prouder and hap- 
pier at that time than he did when he pocketed his largest 
fee. 

In 1826 young Fillmore married Miss Abigail Powers, the 
daughter of a clergyman, a young lady of great good sense and 
fine character. 

In 1S29 he removed to Buffalo, where he now entered upon 
a prosperous practice. About this time he became a member of 
the New York Legislature, in which he delivered a speech of 
much power against imprisonment for debt. 

In 1832 New York State sent Millard Fillmore to Con- 
gress. He entered now upon a new and tumultuous arena. 
Andrew Jackson and his party were carrying everything before 
them. The great battle was fought at this time over the 
National Bank and the removal of the deposits. . 

The new member from New York was a stanch Whig, but he 
could render little service to his party at this juncture. 

He returned to his home and his profession, in which he won 
a steadily increasing success. By this time the quality of the 
man had made itself felt among his political and professional 
associates; his high integrity, his legal ability and his spotless 
character, earned an enviable reputation for the Buffalo lawyer 
and ex-Congressman. 



266 Our Presidents. 



In 1837 he was again re-elected to the House. Equipped 
for service by his former experience, he soon threw himself 
into the thick of affairs : he made many effective speeches in 
the House. The clear, strong quality of his intellect enabled him 
to hold his ground among his able colleagues. He was at this 
time " one of the most advanced of anti-slavery Whigs." 

But his Congressional labors taxed him so heavily that he 
declined a re-election and retired to private life. 

His State, however, would not permit him to remain there. 
The Whig party nominated him as its strongest candidate for 
Governor. The issues made the canvass a strongly excited one, 
and Mr. Fillmore was defeated. But in 1847 he became, by 
an immense vote, Comptroller of the State. This involved a 
removal to Albany, where he discharged his new duties with 
characteristic fidelity. 

But a greater honor was in store for him. Zachary Tay- 
lor, the hero of Mexican battle-fields, was unexpectedly nomi- 
nated for the presidency, and Millard Fillmore's name fol- 
lowed for Vice-President. It was believed that the Northern 
lawyer might retain many votes which would otherwise be lost 
to the oid soldier, who was also a Louisiana slaveholder. 

The canvass went its stormy way; and the Whig party had 
its hour, and the rugged old soldier, and the courteous, polished 
New York lawyer, went to their posts. Sixteen months later the 
executive chair was vacant, and Millard Fillmore took the dead 
President's place. It was a very difficult position to fill at 
this period. The great question of slavery was now overshad- 
owing every other in American politics. On that supreme issue 
the President's attitude soon greatly astonished and angered 
the party which had elected him. His administration in its 
large outlines suggested that of another Vice-President, John 
Tyler. 

Mr. Fillmore's instincts were strongly conservative, and it 



Millard Fillmore. 267 



was his great aim to conciliate the agitated and angry South. 
He had during his vice-presidency supported Mr. Clay's com- 
promise measures, which included the fugitive slave law, so 
repugnant to Northern temper and institutions. 

It was believed that Mr. Fillmore's course was more or less 
swayed by his personal antipathies. But it cannot be questioned 
that he earnestly desired to serve his country. His admin- 
istration closed amid much intense disapproval at the North, 
but the ex-President was, no doubt, partly solaced for this by 
the enthusiastic reception which he met soon afterward on his 
tour through the South. 

Two years later Mr. Fillmore visited Europe, where he was 
the object of many gratifying attentions. These were paid 
partly to the character of the man, partly to his public position. 
He returned home to receive a nomination for the presidency 
by the oddly named " Know Nothing " wing of his party ; but 
James Buchanan carried the election, and the political career of 
Millard Fillmore was ended. 

The remainder of his life was passed in elegant retirement 
amid the books and the social environment congenial to his 
tastes. 

Mrs. Fillmore, who had so bravely shared the struggles of 
her husband's early married life, and sympathized with his 
intellectual aspirations, found the duties of mistress of the 
White House extremely irksome to her delicate health and quiet 
habits. It is said that to her studious tastes the fine library 
at the White House owes its beginnings. She found the great 
mansion almost empty of books, and to gratify her wishes her 
husband " asked and secured an appropriation from Congress 
for the purchase of a library." 

Mrs. Fillmore died in the March which saw the close of 
her husband's administration. The family returned to Buffalo, 
and during the following year the ex-President's only daughter, 



268 Our Presidents. 



who had inherited the sterling quaUties of her parents, followed 
her mother. 

Mr. Fillmore afterward married a Miss Mcintosh, a lady of 
Buffalo. 

His life flowed smoothly and serenely through its later years. 
The Civil War moved on its deadly way, but Mr. Fillmore had 
no lot nor part in that great struggle. No words from his lips 
rung through his State, to fire her heart, and rally her forces, 
in the hour of her trial. It Avas widely believed that the 
Northern ex-President's real sympathies, though he did not 
avow them, were with the South. But neither party looked to 
him now for influence or leadership. 

In private life he was always an interesting and agreeable 
figure. To his high qualities of character he added that inborn 
grace of manner which had distinguished him in his struggling 
youth, and he had a dignified and handsome presence. 

Mr. Fillmore died amid his friends and at his elegant home 
in Buffalo, March 8, 1874. 




^ 



FRANKLIN PIERCE. 

"Sir, you could not congratulate a more astonished man ! " 

Somewhere in June, 1852, a gentleman in Concord, New 
Hampshire, made this characteristic and graceful rejoinder to a 
friend who had just congratulated him on his nomination to the 
presidency of the United States. The speaker's name was 
Franklin Pierce. 

He was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, Nov. 23, 
1804. His father had served as private and officer in the Rev- 
olutionary War, and his son was brought up in a home atmos- 
phere of fervid patriotism and on the political creed of Thomas 
Jefferson. 

It was a creed of the noblest ideals and of a broad and 
generous humanity, else it could not have been Thomas Jeffer- 
son's. It breathed the spirit of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. It was instinct with the large hope and the glowing 
enthusiasm of the early period of the French Revolution. 

The sturdy old father, with his Revolutionary memories and 
his Jeffersonian politics, was comfortably settled on the New 
Hampshire farmstead when Franklin was born. He was the 
sixth of eight children. The elder Pierce was a man of strong 
character, of much native ability, and of unsullied honor. He 
held various important positions in the State ; he was for suc- 
cessive years a member of its Legislature, he belonged to the 
Governor's staff and was General of the militia. 

Mrs. Pierce is said to have been an intelligent Christian 
woman, the fitting head of the large young household. 

So the boy's life struck its roots in the old hill-soil and 



270 Our Presidents. 



prospered vigorously. If he knew little of luxury he had less 
experience of poverty. The New England atmosphere of his 
day was full of intense political excitement. The boy drank 
in the parental talk of the times, of the prominent men of the 
day, of the great political issues at stake, and it was to him like 
the oracles of the gods. 

Franklin had a fair start. He went to the neighboring 
academies of Hancock and Francestown. At sixteen he entered 
Bowdoin. Here he made a striking and agreeable impression 
on every one who came in contact with him. The Bowdoin un- 
dergraduate was extremely popular with his classmates. There 
was something then — there was to be always — singularly lovable 
about him. He was born to be a favorite. Nature herself had 
endowed him with an instinctive courtesy, a grace of speech 
and manner, which attracted people and won affection on all 
sides. 

Franklin Pierce was, we hear, a good scholar, though hardly 
a brilliant one. He had inherited strong military tastes, and 
he became an officer in a college company in which Nathaniel 
Hawthorne was a private. The attachment of the two, so 
unlike in temperament and character, was to prove one of the 
deepest pleasures and satisfactions of their lives. 

Young Pierce graduated in 1824 ^'^d at once began the 
study of law with Judge Woodbury, one of the most conspicuous 
lawyers in the State, and who was " just entering on a brilliant 
political career." 

It was Franklin Pierce's fate to be in the thick of politics 
from his youth. At the time he was preparing for the New 
Hampshire bar, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson 
were the foremost figures in American politics. It is needless 
to say that the law student espoused the soldier's instead of the 
statesman's side, in the fierce canvass of 1828 for the presi- 
dency. 



Franklin Pierce. 271 



Franklin Pierce was duly admitted to the bar and began the 
practice of laAv in his native town. He must have been much 
mortified when his first case proved a failure ; but his reply to 
a friend who condoled with him on that occasion has the ring 
of assured future success : " I will try nine hundred and ninety- 
nine cases if clients will continue to trust me ; and if I fail, just 
as I have to-day, I will try the thousandth." 

But the man who said that and meant it, would not fail "a 
thousand times." 

Hillsborough soon sent young Pierce, as it had sent his 
father, to the State Legislature, where he served four years ; the 
last two of which he was Speaker of the House. 

In 1833 Franklin Pierce was elected to Congress. This was 
a great honor for so young a man. He was a faithful, strenuous 
worker in the House, though not prominent in debates. He 
supported all Jackson's measures and won the old hero's per- 
sonal regard. 

Franklin Pierce entered the Senate, its youngest member, as 
he was only thirty-three. 

Jackson's pupil, the clever, adroit, political leader, Martin 
Van Buren, was just entering upon what proved to be his stormy 
presidency. 

The young senator's graceful, polished and fluent speeches 
won the interest of the chamber. A never-failing tact, a native 
courtesy of bearing and speech, and an unruffled temper, made 
Franklin Pierce popular in the Senate- chamber, as they had in 
the old college-halls of Bowdoin. He had many friends, even 
among his political opponents, and while he was the stanch est 
of Democrats, he had a felicitous way of ameliorating the heat 
and bitterness of political discussion. 

In 1834 Mr. Pierce married Miss Jane Means Appleton, the 
daughter of a President of Bowdoin College. She was a young 
lady of fine mind and character, and an extremely sensitive 



272 Our Presidents. 



organization, which was partly the result of delicate health. 
This marriage proved one of great harmony and happiness. 

In 1838 Mr. Pierce removed to the capital of his native 
State. Here he devoted himself to his profession and won a 
briUiant legal reputation. 

When Mr. Polk became President he appointed Mr. Pierce 
Attorney-General of the United States, but the latter seems not 
to have had a greed for high offices. He declined the appoint- 
ment, as he did the nomination for Governor of his native State. 

But his profession had not extinguished his old military pro- 
clivities, and the war with Mexico opened a new career to the 
New Hampshire lawyer. He was appointed Brigadier-General, 
and sailed with the troops from Newport, Rhode Island, on 
May 27, 1847. 

General Pierce now proved what soldier's stuff he had 
inherited. He had in Mexico a varied, striking and brilliant 
career. In camp and on the battle-field, he showed himself the 
brave soldier, the born commander. He risked his life, he 
was severely wounded, and he bore his sufferings with the 
utmost heroism. One cannot help wishing all that gallant 
behavior had been inspired by a better cause. 

General Pierce returned to his home at Concord with the 
fresh laurels he had won on Mexican battle-fields. He resumed 
his legal practice, in which he had shown high ability and had 
been ranked among the leading lawyers of his State. His 
native kindliness must have won the friendship even of the wit- 
nesses who were under his cross-examination. " It was said 
that he was never known to insult, browbeat, or terrify one." 

But he was still deeply interested in politics. He gave all 
the weight of his character and all his public influence to the 
pro-slavery wing of his party. The South learned to know him, 
to regard him as belonging to itself. " He was the Northern 
man with Southern principles." "* 



Franklin Pierce. 273 



This feeling bore fruit at last. After ten days of balloting, 
the Democratic convention, at Baltimore, nominated the New- 
Hampshire lawyer for the presidency. It took the country by 
surprise, and Mr. Pierce's own words, quoted at the head of 
this sketch, best express his own astonishment when he learned 
the truth. 

The canvass went its fierce way, and in due time Franklin 
Pierce was elected President of the United States. 

The new administration proved a stormy one. This was in 
the nature of things. The question of slavery was becoming 
the central one in American politics. The shameful proceedings 
in Kansas concentrated the interests of the nation on that terri- 
tory. The invasion of its polls, the election of its Legislature 
by armed mobs from other States, the appeal of its hunted and 
helpless inhabitants to Government for succor and protection, 
fired the heart of the country. But all the President's sympa- 
thies were with the pro-slavery party. His words, his deeds, 
proved this only too well during his entire administration ; and 
when it closed and he resigned the helm to James Buchanan, 
Franklin Pierce had "thoroughly alienated the North." 

He returned to his childless home at Concord. Two months 
before his inauguration he had lost the last of his children, " a 
bright boy of thirteen years," who was returning with his 
parents from Boston to Concord, when the cars went over an 
embankment. The boy, who was the object of such pride and 
love, was instantly killed, and the shadow of this grief lay upon 
the father's inaugural. 

Mrs. Pierce, to whose stricken heart and feeble health the 
social demands of the White House had been very burdensome, 
was taken abroad by her husband after they left Washington. 
They spent a year and a half in leisurely travel through Europe. 
After their return home Mrs. Pierce's health did not per- 
manently rally, and she died in December, 1863. 



2 74 Our Presidents. 



The ex-President, left wifeless and childless, was still in the 
prime of his years. The Civil War was going its way of desola- 
tion and death by this time. The pupil and friend of Andrew 
Jackson could hardly wish the Union destroyed, but Franklin 
Pierce never did anything to alter the opinion of a world which 
had long regarded him as a " Northern man with a Southern 
heart." Yet he could not have regarded that title as an envia- 
ble distinction. Nobody could deny, however, that his was a 
kindly, generous, magnanimous heart. It was always inspiring 
pleasant words and helpful deeds. General Pierce had a 
native, felicitous tact, which made him the most delightful of 
friends and companions. Those who were utterly opposed to 
his political course could not resist the charm of that unstud- 
ied, courteous manner, of that graceful, winning talk. Indeed, 
they half disarmed his bitterest opponents, his severest censors. 

He lived to see the Civil War close, the Union victorious. 
The great soldier who had been with him through the Mexican 
War was President of the United States when Franklin Pierce 
went to his last rest. He was close to his sixty-fifth birthday. 
He died at Concord, October 8, 1869. 





^^^^^ ^^-^^-^^^^.^^.5^,.^^ 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 

James Buchanan first saw the light when the French 
RevoUition was shaking the civilized world, for he was born 
April 23, 1791. Stony Batter was the homely name of his 
birthplace. " It lay in a mountain gorge in the midst of pict- 
uresque scenery at the foot of the eastern ridge of the Alle- 
ghanies." The boy's father came of Scotch-Irish breed. He 
had emigrated to America less than a decade before his son's 
birth. He cleared his farm and built his cabin on the frontier, 
and five years after his arrival in the country he married Miss 
Elizabeth Spear, an estimable young woman in the neighbor- 
hood. 

James was fortunate enough, in the midst of his rustic sur- 
roundings, to have an intelligent father and a superior mother. 
It was fortunate for him, too, that when he reached his eighth 
year, the family removed to the village of Mercersburg, when 
James began his studies in English, Latin and Greek. So the 
boy, born in the shadow of the AUeghanies, was to have a fair 
chance to prove what stuff was in him. He was a bright 
scholar, and at fourteen was ready to enter Dickinson College, 
at Carlisle. Here he devoted himself to study, showed remark- 
able ability, and " graduated with the highest honors of his 

class." 

At eighteen he began his legal studies at Lancaster, and at 
twenty-one was admitted to the bar. This was in 181 2. It 
was a critical year in American history, and the young lawyer 
was deeply interested in political affairs. One is half surprised, 
half amused, recalling his later political avowals and affiliations, 



276 Our Presidents. 



to learn tliat he was at that time a Federalist. But he heartily 
supported Madison in the war with England. His blood was 
so fired by the sack of Washington and the threats of an attack 
on Baltimore, that he enlisted as a private soldier, resolved to 
do his share in defending his country from the invaders. 

James Buchanan Avas well equipped for his work when he 
set himself to the practice of his profession. The Lancaster 
lawyer soon acquired distinction at the bar. He secured a 
large and lucrative practice, and in a short time had won for 
himself an enviable reputation among the eminent lawyers of 
Pennsylvania. 

In 1820 Mr. Buchanan was elected to Congress ; he took 
his seat in the House and retained it for the next ten years. 
About this time his political sentiments underwent a change. 
One must be familiar with the history of that period to under- 
stand the various causes which contributed to bring the Fed- 
eralist party, despite its splendid services to the country, into 
disfavor with the nation. James Buchanan became, in a little 
while, identified with the party of Jefferson 

It was full of fresh hope and courage. It was inspired by 
strong convictions and definite purposes. In a little while the 
young member from Pennsylvania had made his mark in Con- 
gress. Some words which he uttered on the floor are interest- 
ing when read in the light of future events : 

" If I know myself I am a politician neither of the East 
nor of the West, of the North nor of the South. I therefore 
shall avoid any expressions, the direct tendency of which must 
be to create sectional jealousies and at length disunion, that 
worst and last of all political calamities." 

In the famous canvass of 1824, when popular passions 
mounted high, the former Federalist used all his influence 
to secure Andrew Jackson's election to the presidency. The 
hero of New Orleans never forgot his friends, and when, four 



James Buchanan. 277 



years later, he succeeded John Quincy Adams, James Bu- 
chanan was appointed Minister to Russia. He made his first 
entrance into court life in the summer of 1832. American 
ambassadors have always had a cordial reception at the Russian 
court. Mr. Buchanan's formed no exception. Indeed, his 
refined, courteous bearing, his polished speech, and a certain 
pliancy of temperament, made him particularly adapted to the 
atmosphere and habits of the presence-chamber of kings. 

He did good service for his country, too ; he finally suc- 
ceeded in negotiating a treaty of commerce with Russia ; he 
won the favor of the Emperor Nicholas. That terrible autocrat, 
who held such an iron rule over his own vast dominions, had his 
beaming moods, in which no monarch could excel him in saying 
gracious things. At Mr. Buchanan's audience of leave, he con- 
descended to desire " that he would tell President Jackson to 
send him another minister exactly like himself." 

With the fresh laurels he had won in the Russian mission, 
Mr. Buchanan returned to America to enter the national 
Senate. Here he unflinchingly supported all Jackson's meas- 
ures. 

This brief narrative cannot enter into the details of Mr. 
Buchanan's political career. In the Senate he was conspic uous 
for his advocacy of state-right theories. His temperament was 
naturally conservative and inclined him to honor exalted place, 
power and high social rank. This fact, no doubt, strongly in- 
fluenced his political sympathies. With all his skill as a lawyer, 
with all his experience and sagacity as a statesman, he had not a 
liigh and resolute spirit. Despite all the purity of his private 
life and his spotless integrity, he was lacking in will and moral 
energy. When he was brought in contact with powerful and de- 
termined natures, he did not confront them with a dauntless tem- 
per. In short, he was not a man for a great national emergency. 

Mr. Buchanan sustained the unfortunate administration of 



2 yS Our Presidents. 



John Tyler. When James K. Polk became President he made 
Buchanan Secretary of State, who threw his whole influence 
into the scale for the Mexican War. 

In all, those great sectional questions which were now coming 
to the front in American politics, Mr. Buchanan invariably took 
the side of the South. He opposed the Wilmot Proviso and 
he approved of the fugitive slave law. 

On the election of Franklin Pierce Buchanan was appointed 
Minister to England. At the court of St. James he was a dig- 
nified and agreeable figure and made many friends. 

But his attitude in the matter of Cuba, and his share in the 
conferences at Ostend, made an unpleasant impression both in 
Europe and America, and seriously threatened the relations of 
the United States with Spain. 

Domestic affairs, however, soon wholly engaged the attention 
of the country. In 1856 the great political conflict took place 
which ended at last in the election of James Buchanan to the 
presidency. The boy who had been born on the Pennsylvania 
frontier, in the humble home at the foot of the Alleghanies, had 
received, after a life of various success and honors, the nation's 
highest gift. 

James Buchanan went to his new post under circumstances 
that would have tried the finest temper, the sternest stuff. The 
adroit politician, the polished diplomat, the bland, courteous 
gentleman, proved himself fatally unequal to the demands of 
the time and place. For the inevitable Civil War was now 
drawing near. 

When the storm gathered there was a faint heart and a flac- 
cid hand, at the helm, and men thought of Andrew Jackson and 
wished he could stand in Buchanan's place, with his flashing 
eyes and his white stern face, and the few strong simple words 
behind which always lay the unfaltering will. 

The Pennsylvania boy and the North Carolina one came of 



James Buchanan. 279 



the same sturdy Scotch-Irish breed, but they were of totally 
different moral strain. 

With all his Southern affiliations and sympathies, Mr. Bu- 
chanan certainly did not desire the destruction of the Union. 
Yet none the less, he, its President, looked on, dismayed, help- 
less, despairing, when the time came to act with promptness and 
energy. No word of high courage and dauntless resolve fell 
from his lips to ring through the North and stir its heart Uke the 
blast of a trumpet. During long months of doubt and waiting, 
he did not lift his hand to stay secession ; indeed, his utterances 
for a while fatally encouraged it. The national forts were 
seized, the Union flag was insulted, the States went their own 
blind, mad way, unhindered by the man to whom had been 
intrusted the fortunes of the nation. He helped neither North 
nor South in the critical hour ; he only lamented and watched 
and waited supinely. He was not the man for the place. This 
will always be the severest count which history will make against 
James Buchanan. 

His presidential career closed at last in calamity and gloom, 
and he no doubt found it an immense relief to leave the scene 
of his great triumphs and his greater failures, and return to the 
beautiful retreat which he had made for his old age at Wheat- 
land, an estate about a mile from Lancaster. 

The ex-President had agreeable social qualities and deep 
family affections. He had an early love ; but when the young 
lady died to whom he had been betrothed, he never, during his 
long life, sought to fill her place with another. 

Whether this fact was the result of devoted loyalty to a 
memory, or to an unemotional temperament, is a matter which 
Mr. Buchanan's most intimate friends could alone answer, and 
which is not the business of the world. 

His beautiful and accomplished niece, Miss Lane, to whom 
he was greatly attached, was the graceful mistress of the White 



28o Our Presidents. 



House during her uncle's administration. She was the daughter 
of the President's dead sister. 

Amid wealth, leisure and affection, Mr. Buchanan spent his 
last years in the home at Wheatland. He lived to witness the 
close of the Civil War, and no doubt he was glad to know that 
the Union had been preserved. 

Mr. Buchanan's real abilities must have suffered some eclipse 
from the brilliant men with whom he was associated during his 
long public life. He died at Wheatland June i, 1868, 




■®^-' 4j MEMam Sojis. re~ 




^9-t 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

The beginnings of this life — to be lifted up where all the world 
should gaze at it — were of the lowliest and humblest. It 
saddens one to go back to that childhood, and read of its 
bareness, its hardships, its limitations. It appears so darkened, 
hedged about, closed in by stark, pitiless poverty ! One would 
imagine that the wolf, with its gaunt, triumphant face, always 
stood at the door of that Kentucky log cabin where, on Febru- 
ary 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln first saw the light. Yet, though 
the traditions and anecdotes of the childhood and youth have 
always the same burden, though the framework in which those 
early years were set appears so bare and scant, I doubt whether 
Abraham Lincoln was conscious of anything of the sort. In- 
deed, I suspect that a quiet, humorous smile would have twin- 
kled on that homely, kindly face, if he had known how people 
who lived in elegant houses, amid the comfort and luxury of 
the last quarter of the nineteenth century, would regard his early 
life. For it was the life of the Western pioneer in the first quar- 
ter of the century, and, despite all its ruggedness and hardships, 
it must have had grand compensations. Those men and women 
of the frontier, who set the outermost stakes of civilization on 
the border, were surrounded by the mystery and beauty of wide, 
varied, lavish nature. Each year held for them the wonder- 
ful march of the seasons. For them the wilderness blossomed 
as the rose, and they beheld the outgoings of the mornings and 
evenings rejoice. If their roofs were scant and low, they spent 
much of their time beneath a roof whose vast arches had been 
sprung by no human skill, while beneath their feet spread a tapes- 



282 Our Presidents. 



try more richly illumined than any which had ever carpeted the 
presence-chamber of kings. Poverty, at its utmost pinch, could 
never have meant to the pioneer what it does in our great cities. 
What could people really know of hunger or cold who had the 
illimitable forests for their fuel, and the abundant wild game of 
the woods, the fish of the streams, the berries of the fields, to 
heap their scant pine-boards ? There were no sharp, humiliat- 
ing contrasts to set the poverty in strong lights, to bring it 
home and make its iron enter the soul. If Abraham Lincoln 
" went barefoot and wore buckskin trousers, and slept in a low, 
dark loft, on a coarse bag filled with corn husks," so did plenty 
of his neighbors, and he probably never dreamed he was any 
the worse for it. It is doubtful whether, during the first twelve 
years of his life, he ever/<?// that he was poor. Indeed, he never 
felt it in any way which could touch his sturdy self-respect 
and independence. Nature has nobler lessons to teach a boy 
than his poverty. If he will listen to the great Mother, she will 
always make light of that. 

When Abraham was getting to be a famous man, some of his 
political opponents charged him with entering Illinois barefoot 
and driving an ox cart. What if he did ? We may be sure 
he carried his head as high, he went as brave and independent 
as though he had worn the finest of broadcloth, or the most shin- 
ing of patent-leather boots. 

The Kentucky boy came of Virginia stock. The grandfather, 
whose name he bore, left the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah 
and pushed out on the western border before the War of the 
Revolution had closed. Thomas was the youngest of the three 
boys of the family ; he stands a weak, helpless, bewildered fig- 
ure between the two Abrahams — the sturdy old pioneer father, 
and the famous son. Perhaps the stern conditions of border- 
life, which included battling with Indians and wild beasts, 
proved too hard for him. At least, he lacked the robust fiber 



Abraham Lincoln. 283 



which goes to the making of the born pioneer. He never had 
a chance to prove whether he was out of place. He was always 
" generous, good-natured, warm-hearted," because to be this 
was in the Lincoln blood. There were no schools in the wilder- 
ness, and he never went to one, never learned even to read or 
write — a fact more surprising now than it was a hundred years 
ago. He might have had a better chance, had not his father, 
while at work in the field, been shot down by a prowling 
savage. This happened two years after the migration from 
Virginia. The widow and her boys must have had a fight 
for existence in the log cabin on the lonely border. Thomas 
spent his youth as a hired laborer. At twenty-eight he built 
his own log cabin, and took to wife Nancy Hawks, a daugh- 
ter of another Virginia emigrant. She was a handsome young 
woman, we are told, with much native refinement, though her 
virtues of mind and heart never had any larger sphere for 
their exercise than a squatter's log cabin on the Western fron- 
tier. Here a daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, and 
later a son, whom they called Abraham, after his grandfather. 
Whatever else was lacking, the boy and girl had the blessing of 
a pure and Christian atmosphere about their early life. A 
wide, beautiful out-door world surrounded the lov/ly home- 
stead. It stood in La Rue County, in the heart of Kentucky. 
Around it opened the early southwestern springs, and bloomed 
the long, lovely summers, and smiled, serene and tender, the 
late Kentucky autumns, and settled down at last the still, short 
winters. 

Inside the log cabin everything was so scant and bare that 
it seemed utterly comfortless ; but the boy and girl must have^v 
had a homely, hearty, rugged childhood, with plenty of fun and 
rollicking thrown in, between the gentle, tender mother and the 
shiftless, easy-going father. 

The son sprang up rapidly into slender, overgrown boyhood ; 



284 Our Presidents. 



he must have presented a singular appearance, with his odd, 
grave, strongly-marked features, and his tall, bony Hmbs, when, 
at seven years old, he went to school for five months ; he must 
have been a bright scholar, too, for he learned to read and 
write in that time. 

This was opening a new world to a boy like Abraham Lin- 
coln. It was to the father's credit that he " deplored his own 
lack of education, and was anxious his children should not 
sviffer in that respect as he had done." 

Perhaps the mother's influence had much to do with this 
feeling. She had enjoyed better advantages than her husband, 
and managed occasionally to get hold of a book, and read 
stories to her delighted children. If the life was humble and 
hard, it was also sound and sweet at the core. 

When Abraham was eight years old, his father made up his 
mind to try his fortunes in Indiana. A pair of horses carried 
the few household goods, and the family of four left their log 
cabin, and the grave of a little boy who had been born after 
Abraham, and started on foot through the wilderness. It was 
a seven days' journey. It was not an unpleasant one, especially 
for the children, in the soft, western autumn weather, with 
plenty of game in the woods, and boughs to be gathered at 
nightfall for the long, deHcious sleep under the stars. At last 
they crossed the Ohio, and, a few miles beyond, reached the 
site of their new home in southern Indiana. 

Thomas Lincoln made shift to put up a hunter's cabin, or 
" pole shelter," in which his family shivered through their first 
Indiana winter. In the spring, with the help of his young son 
whose strength and size were far in advance of his years, he 
built a log cabin of the rudest description, and cleared and 
planted his land. 

The wilderness was a solitary place for the new settlers. It 
must have been a happy day for " Abe " and his young sister 



Abraham Lincoln. 285 



Sally when old friends and neighbors of the Lincolns came to 
the new clearing and formed a settlement. 

But the life in southern Indiana, whatever were its com- 
pensations, appears to have been hardly an improvement on 
the old one left behind in Kentucky. There Avas a side — a 
very large one — that was full of sordid toil and bitter priva- 
tions. The face of the tall, gaunt, awkward boy, with all its 
lights of fun and humor, grew thoughtful and sad in that strait- 
ened, burdened life. After he had learned to read, he had 
an intense craving for books, but these were much like angels' 
visits in the Lincoln log cabin. What efforts that boy made, 
what miles he walked to get hold of a fresh volume, when 
he learned some settler owned the priceless treasure ! No- 
body could have had the heart to refuse his eager entreaties to 
borrow it. How he devoured the contents ! What a different 
sort of reading the earnest, painstaking study of the squatter's 
son was from that of boys who skim the surfaces of their 
lessons ! But the difference told. Whatever Abraham Lincoln 
read was stored away in some stronghold of his memory as a 
miser stores his gold. So, at one time and another, he feasted 
his soul on '' yEsop's Fables," on " The Pilgrim's Progress," and 
" The Life of George Washington." A king's son could have 
no better reading. 

The pioneer life is hardest on its women. Mrs. Lincoln 
broke down early under it. The woman of gentle, refined 
instincts seems to have been out of place in the rough border 
country. She sickened in the mild, malarious climate, and died 
about two years after the removal to Indiana. 

Abraham was ten years old at that time. All his life he 
remembered the sad, patient, loving mother, with a great, rever- 
ent tenderness. 

The home was doubly lonely and comfortless after she left 
it. The unthrifty father was helpless with his young boy and 



:S6 Our Presidents. 



girl on his hands. Things appear to have gone from bad to 
v.orse for more than a year, and then Thomas Lincoln, awak- 
ing to a sense of the situation, did one of the wisest deeds of his 
life. Whatever were the man's failings, he seems to have had 
a fine instinct where women were concerned. He went back to 
the old Kentucky home, and when he returned he brought a 
wife with him. She was a widow — a Mrs. Sally Johnston — an 
old love who had formerly refused him. She brought with her 
her own son and two daughters, and a quantity of household 
effects, which utterly transformed the inside of that unfloored 
log cabin, the first sight of which filled her thrifty soul with dis- 
may. What was much more, she brought her sensible, ener- 
getic, helpful nature, and her warm, generous woman's heart. 

With the appearance of the new mistress on the scene there 
was an immense change for the better. The husband, whether 
he would or not, was forced to bestir himself and improve 
things. " A wood floor, a door that swung on hinges, and glass 
windows " were now added to the cabin. The wife's energy 
infused a new spirit into the household. The neglected appear- 
ance of her step-children had touched her heart. The boy 
and girl were now cared for and made comfortable in a way 
that was utterly new to them. Mrs. I^incoln soon made the sur- 
prising discovery that her young giant of a step-son could read 
and write. She encouraged his desire for study. When a 
school opened for a brief time in a log cabin a mile and a half 
away, Abraham attended with the rest of the young household ; 
he made the most of his opportunities, but he never had more 
than a year's schooling. 

The tide of emigration poured steadily and rapidly into 
Indiana, and " the woods ceased to be a wilderness " around 
Abraham Lincoln's home. A little way off, as the years went 
on, and the boy grew more lank, awkward, rugged with each, 
a store was opened, and a settlement grew about it which was 



Abraham Lincoln. 287 



called Gentryville. The name was chosen in honor of the 
storekeeper, and the sponsors were probably quite innocent of 
any intentional irony. 

It was a great event in Abraham Lincoln's life when he 
earned his first dollar for himself. It happened curiously. 
He had shown his ingenuity and mechanical skill in building a 
boat stout and strong enough " to carry the farm-produce down 
the Ohio to a market." 

One morning, while he stood at the landing, " two strangers 
came down to the shore who wished to be taken out to the 
steamer in the river. Abraham was always ready to do a serv- 
ice, and he carried the men and their luggage out in his boat. 
He seems to have had no thought of reward, but as he was 
about to return each of the strangers tossed him a half dollar." 
His feelings at that moment must be related in his own words. 

" I could scarcely believe my eyes. It was a most impor- 
tant incident in my life. I could scarcely believe that I, a poor 
boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day. The world seemed 
wider and fairer before me. I was more confident and hopeful 
from that time." 

Amid the hard drudgeries on his father's farm, toiling on 
other men's land, reading, or rather mastering every volume on 
which he could lay his big, toil-hardened hands, Abraham Lin- 
coln came up rapidly into his tall, muscular, vigorous youth. 
His outdoor life, his rugged training, had given him a constitu- 
tion of oak and iron ; his bodily strength, his physical feats, 
were the talk and wonder of the western settlement. In all 
games which required long-breathed power and tough muscle 
he was sure to come out winner. The bullies and roughs of 
the rude locality had learned to respect and fear him ; he was 
eminently social, obliging, fond of games, of the frolic and fun 
which relieved and brightened the toilsome life of the settlers. 
Its roughness and coarseness did not jar or repulse one wlio 



• 
288 Our Presidents. 



had been brought up in its midst. No doubt the people 
amongst whom he dwelt regarded Abraham Lincoln as one of 
themselves ; and yet they must, I think, have felt, in a blind, 
instinctive way, a difference. He went, or appeared to, heart 
and soul, into all their loud gayety and frolics ; his quaint, 
funny stories convulsed them with rude guffaws ; yet the serious 
face must have seemed half to rebuke and deny the fun and 
the rollicking. For the sadness appears to have lain always at 
the heart of his childhood and youth and manhood. One won- 
ders whether it was his birthright, or whether it had been 
superinduced by his circumstances and environment. It is 
certain that the power of a strong, original personality had 
begun to tell on his associates. They did not regard young 
Lincoln as a hero or a saint, but they had absolute confidence 
in his word, in his honesty. Amid all the temptations of youth 
and border-life, he remained pure and strictly temperate ; he 
never, in spite of the examples about him, indulged in profanity. 
With the increase of the settlement, books grew more abundant. 
Lincoln continued his habit of strenuous, dogged reading, and 
never laid down a book for the last time until he had mas- 
tered it. 

When he was nineteen, a fresh chance came to him. This 
was to go down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, in a 
flat-boat " laden with a cargo of produce." The distance was 
a thousand miles. This must have proved a dazzling offer to 
the imagination of a youth whose longest trip had been the 
wilderness-tramp from Kentucky to Indiana. The river-voyage 
proved a financial success. It was full of novel sights, adven- 
ture, and interest to Abraham and his young companions. At 
New Orleans he was brought in contact with the dark side of 
slavery, with its degradation, its oppression, its barbarity. What 
he saw then made an ineffaceable impression on the youth of 
nineteen. 



Abraham Lincoln. 289 



Before this time he had lost his sister Sally. She was 
married, a mere child, at fourteen, and died soon after. 

The father grew restless again. In 1830 he sold out his 
squatter's claim, and removed two hundred miles to Illinois. 
The journey was made with ox-teams, in the last weeks of 
winter, "over swollen streams and miry roads." 

Before he left Indiana young Lincoln had reached his 
twenty-first birthday. It must have been one of joyful release 
from a yoke that had long chafed and galled him. The hopes 
and aspirations of his dawning manhood had been cruelly 
chilled and oppressed by the grinding toil and the hard circum- 
stances of his home-life. He was ready and eager for the 
battle with fate, when he would be no longer fretted and ham- 
pered on every side. He was now free to come and to go, to 
keep his own wages, and follow his own bent. 

He helped to build the homestead on the " high bank of the 
north fork of the Sangamon River." Then he went out into the 
world. Though he felt no other regret, it must have cost him 
a pang to part with the stepmother whose care and love he 
always remembered with affectionate gratitude. 

Abraham Lincoln was now alone, homeless, penniless, in 
that young State of Illinois, which, a little later, was to crown 
him with honors. 

The first year of freedom brought no better fortunes than 
the toils of a hired man in the farm-settlements. Then there 
was another trip to New Orleans, made this time in a flat-boat 
built largely with his own hands. The second trip proved, 
like the first, a financial success to his employers. 

Abraham Lincoln, " hiring from job to job of uncertain 
work," was stranded at New Salem about midsummer of the 
year 1831. This was a small, new settlement, whose log and 
pine-board houses were clustered on the Sangamon River, about 
twenty miles from its smart neighbor, Springfield. New Salem's 
19 



290 Our Presidents. 



chief source of prosperity was a mill owned by a Mr. Rutledge, 
the principal man of the settlement. The population com- 
prised the lowest, coarsest and roughest elements of the border. 
The lank, awkward, solemn-faced youth had no employment, 
and was eagerly looking about for any work which would enable 
him to solve that first problem of existence — the keeping of 
soul and body together. 

At the time when Abraham Lincoln entered New Salem, his 
feet were on the lowest rung of that ladder whose topmost 
height he was to climb within the next two decades. Think of 
him in his loneliness, his shabbiness, his friendlessness, and then 
think of the man he was — a little later — to be ! 

The man was there, too, at that very time, under all the 
homeliness and awkwardness and hard fortune — the man, hon- 
est, resolute, pure-minded, courageous — the very stuff out of 
which Fortune delights to make her heroes. And all the while 
she was secretly smiling to herself, and holding her highest gifts 
in store for him. 

It is a curious fact that soon after he appeared at New 
Salem the rather surprising discovery was made that the new- 
comer could read and write. This was an accomplishment 
which gave one a certain distinction amid the rude, drifting 
population. On election day Lincoln was appointed clerk to 
record the votes at the polls. His service probably brought 
him more honor than emolument. 

In that rough, drinking, fighting community, other qualities 
of the " farm-hand and flat-boatman " told in a little while. He 
proved honest, energetic, industrious when he had a chance to 
work. His courage, his "length of limb," his immense muscular 
strength won profound respect. He showed his prowess before 
a rough, vociferous mob in a wrestling match with the champion 
bully of the neighborhood. 

After a time employment came to young Lincoln, which was 



Abraham Lincoln. 291 



certainly an improvement on all that had gone before. A Mr. 
Offert, storekeeper at New Salem, offered the young man, to 
whom he had taken a liking, the position of clerk and sales- 
man. A little later the merchant rented the mill, and proved 
his satisfaction with his clerk's services by making him fore- 
man. 

All this time the man that was in young Lincoln, the man 
that, despite his lowly birth, his hard fate, his long, bitter strug- 
gle, was resolved to rise, to make his place and do his work 
in the world, was reading, studying the rough human nature 
about him, and having his long, wise thoughts as he " lay on the 
counter, waiting for customers, or stretched upon the grass out- 
side in dull seasons, or sat upon a sack of corn between grists 
at the mill." 

At night one kindled shaving after another shone upon 
the page for which the reader could afford no candle. He 
heard some talk about grammar, and at once applied to the 
schoolmaster, a Mr. Graham, for enlightenment. Young Lin- 
coln had a wonderful capacity for asking questions, and man- 
aged to gain some fresh information from every person with 
whom he talked. The schoolmaster happily knew of a gram- 
mar six miles away. Lincoln set off to find the owner, pur- 
chased the book, and in a short time thoroughly mastered its 
contents. 

He also joined a debating club, and naturally subscribed for 
a paper. These were the days, too, when he " read and re-read 
Shakspere, and almost knew Burns by heart." 

No doubt he was sometimes unhappy in this life-and-death 
grapple with his fate; he felt the goad of ambition, the restless- 
ness of aspiring youth; but he had so hard a fight for every inch 
of the upward way that, had the grit been less firm, the pur- 
pose less earnest and noble, they might have failed. 

The store and the mill did not prove a success. When the 



292 Our Presidents. 



one was closed and the other had returned to its owners young 
Lincoln found himself adrift at New Salem. By this time he 
had many friends in the settlements. The rough associations, 
the rude life, were things that he took as a matter of course. 
If they left their mark on him all his life, it was in no degrad- 
ing way ; he learned to know the common people. In compre- 
hension and sympathy he was a part of them, as he could never 
have been had his youth lain in less rugged ways. 

In 1832 Black Hawk and his braves came across the Missis- 
sippi. The frontier was roused. There had not been such talk 
of war, such enlistments of volunteers, since Andrew Jackson 
led his Tennesseans against the Seminoles. Lincoln had, the 
previous year, been chosen captain at a militia muster. 

But this time he was to see something of real war; he joined 
the volunteers; he was again chosen captain, and marched with 
the little army of twenty-four hundred troops. Zachary Taylor 
was its colonel. 

Captain Lincoln had won a short, sharp military experience. 
It was yet to prove of great value to himself and his country. 
In the Black Hawk War, the Indians played their old game of 
an ambuscade with the rash, inexperienced troops, and suc- 
ceeded as well as their ancestors had on the old field of Brad- 
dock's Defeat. 

The tall, lank, grave-faced captain carried himself gallantly 
through all the heats, " the marching and counter-marching, the 
hardship and sufferings, which he shared with his men." This, 
of course, " won their hearts." 

With the rout of the savages the war closed, and Lincoln and 
his company returned to New Salem. In a little while he won 
fresh laurels in a new field ; he made a speech before the debat- 
ing club. Its force and homely eloquence took his rough 
audience by storm, and made a strong impression on Mr. James 
Rutledge, the president of the club, the owner of the Nev/ 



Abraham Lincoln. 293 



Salem mill. A few days afterward he advised Lincoln to become 
a candidate for election to the State Legislature. 

The former " farm-hand and flat-boatman " must have been 
greatly taken by surprise. He modestly declined to run, urging 
his small acquaintance in the large Sangamon County ; but Mr. 
Rutledge persisted, and the New Salem people sustained the 
mill-owner. At last the young man yielded. He made stump 
speeches throughout the count3^ It was the year of Jackson's 
second election to the Presidency, and the frontier was shaken 
with the stormy canvass. Lincoln's first political speech is 
thoroughly characteristic : 

" Gentlemen and Fellow Citizens : I presume you all know 
who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been 
solicited by many friends to become a candidate for this State 
Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old 
woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in 
favor of the internal improvement system, and of a high, pro- 
tective tariff. These are my sentiments and political princi- 
ples. If elected, I shall be thankful ; if not, it will be all the 
same." 

It is not surprising that Lincoln was defeated in the hot 
canvass. But New Salem stood by him splendidly. She gave 
hjm two hundred and eighty votes ; all she had but three. 

The defeated candidate tried storekeeping — this time with 
a partner. The firm did not succeed. Lincoln found himself 
weighted with a burden of debts, while his partner proved 
worthless. 

In the darkest hours the young man never lost a jot of heart 
or hope. At this time he was appointed Postmaster of New 
Salem, this being the first office he held under government. 
The position did not involve large duties ; the mail did not 
arrive every day. The tradition runs that the Post Office v^as 
Abraham Lincoln's hat ! 



2 91. Our Presidents. 



A little later he was surprised by being offered a position as 
surveyor. He knew nothing of the art, but this was not an 
indispensable obstacle to one who had his habits of dogged, 
persistent study. The surveyor who wished to employ him as 
an assistant brought with him a manual of instruction in the 
art. 

Young Lincoln took the book, buried himself in the country 
for six weeks, boarding with the schoolmaster who had first 
enlightened him regarding grammar. At the end of this time 
he had mastered the art of surveying. Did it ever occur to 
him, one wonders, that he was following in the steps of the 
Virginia planter's son — the first President of the United States ? 

From this time he found steady employment ; and the new 
surveyor's work on the Sangamon prairies proved as accurate 
and trustworthy as that of George Washington in the Shenan- 
doah Valley. 

Judicious friends, at this time, gave him wise and helpful 
counsels. One — a Mr. Stuart of Springfield — advised young 
Lincoln to study law. When he had made up his mind to pre- 
pare for the bar, he set about the work with his habit of iron 
determination. " He went to Springfield, borrowed a pile of books 
of Mr. Stuart, returned with them on his back to New Salem, 
and began his legal studies." He had now decided upon his 
future life work, and he put all his intellectual energies into 
his law-reading. His study was the shade of an oak tree, but 
it turned out a better lawyer than many a luxurious library. 

About this time what was to prove the greatest joy and the 
deepest grief of Abraham Lincoln's life came to him. He saw 
what was best and fairest in the world about him, and he 
loved it with all the strength and loyalty of his deep, silent 
nature. 

Ann Rutledge was the daughter of young Lincoln's warm, 
personal friend. She was a girl of rare loveliness of person and 



Abraham Lincoln. 295 



character. The country merchant had given his daughter 
the best advantages which his means and his neighborhood 
afforded. 

Lincoln was thrown much in the society of the young 
woman, when, during his second year at New Salem, he went 
to board awhile at her father's house. She had been betrothed 
to a young man, who at last confessed that he had wooed her 
under a false name. His explanations, however, were plausible 
enough to win her pardon, and he started for the East, promis- 
ing to return and make her his bride. 

Letters came for awhile, but the lover never appeared, and 
at last they ceased altogether. Ann Rutledge was only nine- 
teen, and the faithlessness of the man whose wife she had 
promised to be was a terrible blow to her young heart. Her 
charms insured her plenty of admirers eager to take his place, 
but she found little solace in that reflection. 

Her sensitive conscience made Miss Rutledge feel that she 
was not free to accept a new love while she was not formally 
released from the old. But the sterling qualities, the real man- 
liness, and the intellectual gifts of her father's young friend 
won her at last. He must have appeared a kind of awkward 
Hercules to a young girl with his lank height, his homely 
features, and his lack of all drawing-room ease and grace. Yet 
there was some power and attraction in his personality which 
one could not fail to perceive who was brought, as Ann 
Rutledge was, into daily companionship with young Lincoln. 

He had now a fresh spur to his ambitions ; he was eager to 
win honors that he might bring them to the beautiful, high- 
souled maiden, whom he loved with all the strength of his deep, 
tender nature. 

Again a candidate for the Legislature, he made another 
stumping-tour through the county. The man had acquired a 
wider range, power, eloquence. His talk went straight to the 



296 Our Presidents. 



reason and the hearts of his audiences. Very few amongst 
them suspected that a woman was his finest inspiration. At all 
events he was triumphantly elected to the State Legislature. 

Miss Rutledge's delicate scruples yielded at last, and she was 
betrothed to Abraham Lincoln. They were to be married, it 
was understood, after he had completed his legal studies. 

When the Legislature assembled at Vandalia, then the cap- 
ital of Illinois, Lincoln walked a hundred miles to join his 
colleagues. During the session he remained, for the most part, 
silent, listening, observant ; but all his mental powers were 
deepening and expanding at this period. When the session 
closed he walked back to New Salem. He had meanwhile 
gained in valuable knowledge and experience. 

In this year of 1835 Abraham Lincoln had his day of brief, 
supreme happiness, but the shadows gathered upon it before 
the summer closed. Ann Rutledge's health began to decline. 
Whether in any case she was too fragile to bear the wear-and- 
tear of life, or whether the strain of emotion had been too great 
for a peculiarly sensitive organization, cannot now be known. 
She had a last interview with her lover, and he left the house 
almost frantic with grief. She died in the last week of the 
summer. 

It seems almost sacrilege to write of the lover's grief. The 
reason of the strong, self-poised man was almost unhinged for 
a time. One must bear in mind how lonely his life had been, 
and that this was its one romance. There is something unutter- 
ably pathetic in that moan out of his loyal heart : *' I can 
never be satisfied to have the snows, rains and storms beat upon 
her grave ! " 

One of his friends succeeded at last in inducing him to 
leave the village, and remain with him for a time. In the 
quiet his native forces rallied ; he buried himself once more in 
his law studies. When he returned to New Salem, the sliock 



Abraham Lincoht. 297 



he had undergone was written in the gloomy, haggard face, 
that from his birth had been a sad one, despite its gleams of 
fun and humor. Something in his looks touched the rude, 
kindly hearts about him. 

In 1836 Sangamon County again sent Abraham Lincoln to 
the Legislature by a larger vote than any candidate received 
that year. He was, at this time, twenty-seven years old. He 
again trudged to Vandalia on foot. Here he met, for the first 
time, Stephen A. Douglas, then only twenty-three. The silent 
member of the previous session threw himself heart and soul 
into the business of this one. " He served upon the Committee 
of Finance : he at once took rank as an able debater and par- 
liamentarian. " Through his influence, and that of the other 
Sangamon County representatives, a bill was passed removing 
the Illinois capital to Springfield. With his six feet and four 
inches he must have towered above most of his colleagues. 
Before the close of the session he boldly avowed his anti- 
slavery convictions. It required splendid moral courage for a 
young and modest man to do this before an assembly so hos- 
tile that only one member supported Lincoln. Those trips in 
the flat-boats to New Orleans were bearing fruit. 

"When the session closed he walked back to New Salem, 
his only baggage a bundle in his hand." It was fortunate for 
him that he had his superb strength, his constitution of oak 
and iron to fall back upon. They must have been an inherit- 
ance from the old Lincoln breed. 

In 1839, ^^^- Stuart proposed that young Lincoln should 
enter into a law-partnership with him. It goes without saying 
that he accepted so flattering an offer. He removed to Spring- 
field, now the capital, and began the practice of law. 

The story of the childhood and youth of struggle, poverty, 
hardship is ended at last. I do not believe that boy of the 
frontier ever wasted much time in envying rich men's sons their 



298 Our Presidents. 



smoother lot and their larger opportunities. With his superb 
health and his indomitable will, he had looked his hard fortune 
in the face, and made up his mind for the fight and the victory. 

From the time that he removed to Springfield the narrative 
of Abraham Lincoln's life is one of steadily growing success 
and prosperity. Everybody is familiar with the story. In a 
little while he had earned a wide reputation at the bar. His 
clear, forcible, logical presentation of a case had an immense 
influence on the minds of the jury ; he employed no sophis- 
tries ; he indulged in no plausible talk, which perplexed and 
confused the understandings of plain, honest men ; " he had 
none of the graces of oratory ; but he had an intuitive insight 
into the human heart, a clearness of statement which was itself 
an argument, with uncommon power and felicity of illustration, 
often, it is true, of a plain and homely kind." 

" He would never advocate a cause which he did not believe 
to be a just one, and no amount of odium or unpopularity could 
dissuade him from undertaking a cause where he thought the 
right was with his client." 

During this time young Lincoln was frequently a guest at 
the house of his intimate friend, Mr. Ninian Edwards. He 
met there Miss Mary Todd, a bright, vivacious young lady, the 
sister-in-law of his host. Like Lincoln, she was from Kentucky, 
although her home-life and early advantages had been, in many 
respects, immensely superior to his own. But the young lady 
soon perceived, beneath all external drawbacks, the high abili- 
ties and sterling qualities of the young lawyer. 

The romance of Abraham Lincoln's life was in the grave 
of Ann Rutledge ; but the man's heart was lonely and empty. 
After a while he and Miss Todd were engaged. It is not 
necessary to enter into the details of the courtship. They were 
married, and Abraham Lincoln had won — what he never really 
had before — a home. This was in 1841. 



Abraham Lincoln. 299 



The record of the next twenty years is one of constantly 
enlarging public life, of increasing responsibilities, of accumulat- 
ing honors, until these are at last crowned with the nation's 
highest gift. 

The limits of this biography permit only a glance at the 
ascending fortunes. In 1847, the Sangamon district — always 
loyal to Lincoln — sent him to Congress. In all the vital ques- 
tions which engaged its attention at that critical period the new 
member took a decided part, and defended his positions with 
great ability and earnestness. He left no doubt that he would 
follow his convictions wherever they might lead him. 

They led him into an unflinching opposition to the exten- 
sion of slavery ; they led him also to delivering that series of 
immortal campaign speeches, in which he matched his strength 
against his powerful political rival, Stephen A. Douglas. Lin- 
coln's speeches at this time made him famous throughout the 
country. The first one, delivered at Ottawa, was listened to 
by an audience of twelve thousand people. " Everywhere 
Mr. Lincoln proved his superiority, both in intellectual power 
and soundness of moral position." 

But this position was an advanced one for those days, and 
the people of Illinois, though they were aroused and impressed, 
" were not quite ready to follow Lincoln." If Douglas had 
been worsted on the platform, he none the less went to the 
Senate. 

No doubt Lincoln's disappointment was, for the moment, 
keen, though he said of his defeat in his quaint, homely fashion, 
" I felt like the boy who had stubbed his toe — too badly to 
laugh, and too big to cry. " 

By this time the boy whose beginnings were the Kentucky 
woods and the Indiana river-bottoms, the log cabin and the 
" pole-shelter," had won a national reputation, and was recog- 
nized as one of the leaders of the new Republican party. Invi- 



500 Our Presidents. 



tations to speak crowded upon him ; he went to Kansas, and 
afterward to New York and to New England ; he captivated his 
audiences, whether they belonged to the Western frontier, or 
to the most polished and cultivated circles of old Eastern 
cities. 

At Cooper Institute, where his audience was largely com- 
posed of the most distinguished citizens of New York, his 
speech aroused unbounded enthusiasm. His originality, his 
real greatness, and his odd personality, all served to make him 
an object of marked interest to the polished Eastern people 
among whom he was now thrown. This tall, gaunt, sinewy 
Western lawyer, with his shrewdness, his apt, homely illustra- 
tions that went straight to the mark, and his eloquence that 
held his hearers thrilled and spellbound, was something quite 
out of their line. Some of these were curious to learn, if 
possible, the secret of his power. To one of his new friends, 
who inquired about his early education, he replied in his 
frank, simple way : " Well, as to education, the newspapers 
are correct, I never went to school more than six months in 
my life ; I can say this, that among my earliest recollec- 
tions I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get 
irritated when people talked to me in a way I could not under- 
stand. 

" I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing 
the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending 
no small part of the night walking up and down, and trying to 
make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, 
dark sayings. 

" I could not sleep, although I often tried to, when I got on 
such a hunt after an idea, until I had caught it ; and when I 
thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it 
over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as 
I thought, for any boy to understand. That was a kind of 



Abraham Lincoln. 3^1 



passion with me, and it has stuck by me, for I am never easy 
now, when I am handUng a thought, until I have bounded its 
north and south, east and west." 

The RepubUcan Convention, which met in Chicago in 
June, i860, was to prove the most momentous one which had 
assembled on this continent since that old one, which, seventy- 
three summers before, had framed in Philadelphia the Consti- 
tution of the United States. The history of the Chicago 
Convention cannot be dwelt on here. In its crowded, tumul- 
tuous assemblies one name was long and oftenest on men's 
lips for the Presidency. It was that of a great statesman and 
true patriot, William H. Seward. But when the Convention 
separated, it had, to the amazement of great sections of the 
country, nominated Abraham Lincoln. 

It was characteristic of the man that when, a little later, the 
committee, in accordance with the etiquette of the occasion, 
called at his simple home to inform him of his nomination, he 
*' pledged their mutual healths in pure Adam's ale from the 
spring ; " he averred, " that it was the only beverage he had 
ever used or allowed in his family." 

During the summer and autumn which followed the nation 
held its breath, awaiting the election on which such vast issues 
were to hang. In November it was known throughout the 
length and breadth of the land that Abraham Lincoln would 
be the next President of the United States. 

The hour had struck ; and the man who had been trained 
in the hard, rough, hidden ways, had come to his place and 
his task. 

During the winter which followed he sat under his quiet 
roof-tree at Springfield, watching the course of events, with his 
shrewd, intent, far-seeing gaze. And what events they were ! 
For the South, gone mad now with pride and rage, was resolved 
that the new President should have no " rights, power, or 



?02 Our Presidents. 



authority within her borders." By February i, 1861, seven 
States had seceded from the Union. 

A great sadness, during these waiting weeks, fell upon the 
soul of the man who was so soon to take his place at the nation's 
helm. Lincoln had been reading the signs of the times with a 
farther piercing vision than any other statesman of that day. 
He had a prescience of the struggle that was coming, of the 
dark and bloody years that were at hand. 

As the winter went its way there were other things to him 
than its storms, and its snows in the air. That was full of 
mournful voices of dread and terror, of prophecies of anguish 
and desolation to come. 

Abraham Lincoln was barely fifty-three when he left Spring- 
field, which he was never to see again, for Washington. He 
was really in his prime, but everybody thought of him as an 
old man. Those who liked him trusted him, spoke of him 
affectionately as " Old Abe." I suspect he was called that in 
his boyhood, in the low home, and among his playmates. With 
those homely features and that solemn face, he must ahvays 
have had an odd, unchildlike look. 

Probably Abraham Lincoln was the saddest man — unless 
possibly it may have been George Washington — who ever went 
from his home to the Presidential post. 

The history of the Civil War does not belong to this narra- 
tive. The part which Abraham Lincoln played during those 
four great historic years has been read of all men. We know 
with what tireless patience and courage he tried to conciliate 
his foes and avert the war. But when the storm broke at last, 
and there was no appeal between the North and the South but 
the God of Battles, we know, too, how grandly he met the 
issues and proved himself equal to the time, and how he freed 
the slave and saved the Union. 

It almost dizzies one now to think what burdens he had to 



Abraham Lincoln. 303 



bear, what cares and responsibilities were laid on that strong, 
patient, saddened man. 

Abraham Lincoln grew larger and wiser with the times, as 
all great souls do with occasion. There was necessarily much 
in the circumstances of his new position which afforded no 
precedents to guide him ; and he was often obliged to fall back 
upon his own instincts, his rare common sense, his sound judg- 
ment. Much, of course, had to be tentative and experimental 
during the first years of his administration. He had to learn 
men, and the places they were born to fill, and this required 
time and trial. 

His military training had been limited to a few weeks' serv- 
ice during his youth in the Black Hawk War. Yet the Consti- 
tution made him Commander-in-Chief of the great Northern 
armies, and he was held responsible for their organization, the 
conduct of their officers, and the success or failure in the field. 
The wonder is, not that he made some mistakes, but that they 
were so few. 

Great as were the burdens on this man's thought and brain 
through all those four years, the burden on his heart was 
heavier, and that never slipped off — never, indeed, lightened. 
When the first regiments that the North sent to Washington 
marched before the President in their glittering bravery and 
gayly saluted him, the sad eyes grew sadder as they looked on 
all the pomp and parade. For Abraham Lincoln saw beyond 
these, the awful shadows of the battle-fields, and the dead and 
the dying were there ; and he thought of the darkened homes 
in all the Northern and Southern land, where the women — 
tender mothers and wives, sisters and daughters — would weep 
their woman's tears and break their woman's hearts over those 
who had gone out brave and confident, and who would never 
come back again. 

" The boys ! " I think that in a very deep, tender sense 



304 Our Presidents. 



they were all Abraham Lincoln's " boys " who went to the 
war ; that he carried them constantly in his heart and thoughts 
through all those terrible four years. 

Once the shadow that was filling the homes of the land fell 
upon the White House hearthstone. Under the quiet roof at 
Springfield one boy after another had come, until there were a 
trio to bear the father's name and make the tired heart glad with 
the life and fun of childhood. The second of these — " little 
Willie, a peculiarly promising child " — sickened and died sud- 
denly during the first year of his father's administration. 

It was a terrible blow to the burdened man, though the 
times allowed him no pause for grief ; but his own loss gave him 
thereafter a deeper, more intimate sympathy with every mourn- 
ing household in the land. 

He grew greater, not only in knowledge and wisdom, 
but in simple goodness. He carried his own sorrows — he 
carried the great Nation which had set him in its highest 
place, and trusted him with its life, to the help and the pity of 
God. 

Perhaps no one during these years penetrated to the inner- 
most of this man's life. But those who knew Abraham Lincoln 
best, and met him oftenest at this time, saw that a change had 
come over him. There was a new life in the man. A deeper 
faith, a surer trust, a larger charity, were evident in all his 
speech and action, and those who listened and watched wisely, 
knew that God had not failed him. 

The war went its long way of agony for North and South. 
In due time came that " Emancipation Proclamation," for 
which neither ruler nor people at the beginning had been ripe. 
During his first administration the nation and its President had 
grown slowly to trust each other ; and when another " politi- 
cal Olympiad " came around, the people's verdict again made 
Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. 



Abraham Lincoln. 305 

By this time it had become evident to all who had the vision 
to pierce coming events that the cause of the Southern Con- 
federacy — maintained at such long cost and with such high 
courage — was in its death throes. The second inaugural of the 
President had about it a calm atmosphere of assured coming 
victory. Sherman was making his historic march to the sea, 
and Grant was steadily approaching Richmond. 

There came a day in the soft April weather, when the Presi- 
dent learned that Richmond was evacuated. On that same day 
he made his entrance into the captured city. But the victor 
went with no signs of triumph. A tall man, with a sad, kindly, 
furrowed face, was seen moving on foot through the streets, 
leading his young son by the hand. Around him joyous crowds 
of colored people pressed, shouting and sobbing, and hailing 
him as their Liberator. 

" The President took his hat off reverently and bowed ; 
but he could not speak, for the tears were pouring down his 
cheeks." 

It was such a scene as the world had never witnessed before. 
Never had one of its conquerors made a like triumphal prog- 
ress. How the light and joy of that scene shine against all 
the dark background of this man's days ! Did he remember 
them at that time ? Did he think that all the struggle and 
hardship had not been too great a price to pay for that hour ? 

Yet when Abraham Lincoln left Richmond that day, his 
work was virtually done. 

Less than two weeks afterward, April 14, 1865, the end 
came. It is useless going over here with the story that the 
world knows by heart. It has gone with him to the theatre 
where the tired President went that night, partly at his wife's 
request, partly to give body and soul some relaxation from the 
long burden and strain they had undergone. The North was 
in its first flush of joy and victory ; but Abraham Lincoln must 
20 



?o6 Our Presidents. 



have felt that the future still held for him new cares, and vast 
responsibilities, and untried duties. 

In that peaceful hour Death waited for him. It came 
stealthily, but it came swift and sure — when there was no dream 
of danger, when Abraham Lincoln's loyal people were all about 
him, and when his heart was stilled, Math an unutterable glad- 
ness and gratitude, because the war was ended. 





^^^^1^'- 




^^^^^^<^:^^2^z^ 



ANDREW JOHNSON. 

On the morning of April 15, 1865, Andrew Johnson became 
President of the United States. The Vice-President of six 
weeks took his oath of office under circumstances which 
might well appall the stoutest heart. A man must have been 
more or less than human whose nature was not stirred to its 
depths by the conditions and events amid which the new Execu- 
tive passed to the nation's chief place. 

For that fair April morning was the saddest that ever rose 
over America. The beloved President had just breathed his 
last in the little chamber where they had borne him from the 
theater in that unconsciousness from which he never roused 
after the assassin's bullet had struck him down. 

The knowledge of the great tragedy came upon the coun- 
try in its hour of rejoicing. The air of all the North-land was 
tremulous with the ringing of bells which celebrated the return 
of peace, when the blackness fell, and the hush which followed 
was broken only by voices of mourning. 

In that hour all eyes were of course turned to the man upon 
whose shoulders the mantle of the dead President had fallen. In 
the shadow of death Andrew Johnson went up to the place of 
the lost ruler. In doubt, consternation, dismay, all loyal people 
began to ask themselves of what stuff the man was made, who 
at this unparalleled hour had been intrusted with the destinies 
of the nation. 

He had been elected Vice-President with scant knowledge 
of his real character outside that section of interior country 
where he had been born and played his part with signal 



3o8 Our Presidents. 



honor and success. When the test came that tried men's 
souls, he had proved faithful to the Union ; he had pleaded 
its cause with his ringing, fiery speeches, at the risk of his life ; 
he had been hunted over the land ; his helpless family had 
been forced to fly from their home. Yet Andrew Johnson's 
loyalty had proved of the highest strain. The fortune he had 
accumulated and the friendships of his life had all been sacri- 
ficed to his love for that old flag beneath which he had been 
born and reared. This was what men were telling each other, 
and trying to take comfort in the thought, on that baleful Satur- 
day morning, April 15, 1865. 

But despite all this record of heroic endurance and loyalty, 
there lay a doubt and a dread at the heart of things — a feel- 
ing that this man, Andrew Johnson, who had just become Presi- 
dent of the United States, was largely an "unknown quantity." 

He owed nothing to fortune, unless her frowns mean, in the 
long run, the fairest fate ; his beginnings were the straitest 
and humblest ; he was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, just at 
the close of the eighth year of the century ; his parents were too 
poor to give him any advantages of schooling, at a time when 
these at their best were meager enough. When Andrew was 
five, his father was drowned, while heroically attempting to save 
a friend's life. The widow was left with her fatherless boy on 
her hands, and managed to keep soul and body of both together 
by her labor. 

At ten, Andrew, unable to read or write, a fact certainly of 
little credit to the authorities at Raleigh, was apprenticed to a 
tailor : he worked at the trade until he was sixteen, by which 
time he had managed to learn his letters. At eighteen he 
removed with his mother to Greenville, a small town in eastern 
Tennessee. Here he did, what proved to be the most fortunate 
thing in a life which held many of fortune's great prizes, he made 
a wise and happy marriage. With his active, vigorous personal- 



Andrew Johnson. 309 



ity, his strong, impulsive nature, there must have been some- 
thing powerfully magnetic about Andrew Johnson. His wife is 
said to have been a very attractive girl, and her educational 
advantages had been superior to his own. With a woman's tact 
and devotion she set herself to teaching her young husband. 
She read to him while he worked, and during the evenings he 
was her intent and eager pupil. Under such an influence he 
soon acquired the rudiments of an education ; he possessed much 
native ability and his memory had a lasting grip on anything 
which he learned. From the time of his marriage Andrew 
Johnson's progress was steadily upward. 

At twenty the North Carolina boy was an alderman; at twenty- 
two he was Mayor of Greenville. About this time he was also 
appointed one of the trustees of Rhea Academy. He must 
have had unusual mental quality, as well as moral force, to attain 
these positions at that age. He had also a native oratorical gift, 
a power of pungent, fiery speech, which soon gathered about him 
eager and enthusiastic audiences in his neighborhood. 

It was inevitable that a man of this kind should early become 
interested in politics. Young Johnson was in the State where 
Andrew Jackson was the central figure, and he followed his chief 
with all the devotion of his ardent, resolute, combative nature. 
The elder political leader had taken full possession of the 
younger's imagination. This fact should never be lost sight of. 
It was always Johnson's aim to follow in the lines, and to shape 
his political methods after the example of the hero of the Her- 
mitage. There were many suggestive analogies between the early 
lives of the two men. Johnson must have been acutely con- 
scious of this fact. Both were natives of the same State. Both 
had become Tennesseans by adoption. It was a rather striking 
coincidence that the initials of both names were identical. 

It has been said that Andrew Johnson was always gratified 
by " a comparison between his qualities and those of General 



lo Our Presidents. 



Jackson." But sagacious observers, who studied the characters 
of the two men, did not think the resemblance so intimate and 
permanent as the younger fancied them. 

Whatever honest ambitions or personal vanities Andrew 
Johnson might cherish, his career from the time he reached 
early manhood was certain to encourage these. At twenty- 
seven he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representa- 
tives ; afterward he went to the State Senate. 

These, however, were but the lower rungs of that political 
ladder which he was destined to climb. In 1843 Tennessee 
sent him a Representative to Congress, and by succeeding elec- 
tions he held the office for ten years. In 1853 he was Gov- 
ernor of Tennessee, and re-elected when his first term expired. 

No man could have held these varied and high positions for 
so many years without possessing marked character and ability. 
This one had outstripped in the race many of his contempora- 
ries who had been born in wealth and nurtured in kindly atmos- 
pheres, and equipped with every social and educational advan- 
tage. 

Andrew Johnson had the reputation among his neighbors 
and political colleagues of unflinching courage and unsullied 
integrity. This was greatly to his credit, but it must also be 
said that he was opinionated, obstinate and aggressive. What- 
ever he did he did with his whole heart and soul. When he 
was kindled into boundless enthusiasm for a cause or a measure, 
his fervid oratory, his strong, terse, pungent sentences, carried 
his audiences with him. In his best moments his forceful per- 
sonality, his powerful declamation, and the courage and fire of 
the man, made an impression on cool heads and strong intel- 
lects. Of course, a Democrat of the Jackson type would, on 
all political issues, take the side of the people, and identify his 
interests with theirs. 

Johnson was immensely popular ; he said and did striking and 



Andrew Johnson. 311 



original things which interested and amused the people. One 
of the many characteristic anecdotes related of him was, that 
when Governor of Tennessee, he sent his brother Governor of 
Kentucky, who had been his early friend and companion, " a 
very handsome suit of clothes, cut and made with his own 
hands." 

The Kentucky Governor, who had been a blacksmith in his 
young days, not to be outdone, " forged a very neat pair of 
shovel and tongs, which he sent to Governor Johnson, with the 
wish that they would help to keep alive the flame of their old 
friendship." 

Tennessee had not yet exhausted her role of honors for 
Andrew Johnson. In 1857 she sent him to the Senate. Here 
he worked faithfully on the party lines until the prospect of 
secession set all the patriotism of his powerful nature aflame. 
On this issue the great popular leader separated from his party 
fearlessly, absolutely. No doubt he recalled Jackson's course 
in the Nullification era, and aimed at following in his predeces- 
sor's footsteps. It is certain that the Tennessee Senator left no 
stone unturned to save his State to the Union. 

He made a grand figure as he stood almost alone amongst 
his political associates, and fought in the Senate against seces- 
sion with a courage and zeal that would have delighted the 
soul of Andrew Jackson. Some of Johnson's speeches were 
like battle-cries, and they goaded his opponents to frenzy. 

But no menaces and no dangers could move him. In that 
mad time all terrible passions were let loose. Johnson was 
burned in effigy at Memphis. He returned to Tennessee to 
find a price set upon his head. His house was sacked ; his wife, 
an invalid, and his child, were driven into the streets, and 
forced to wander houseless fugitives through the country. For 
a long time they remained in ignorance of his fate. 

In February, 1862, the capture of Forts Henry and Donel- 



312 Our Presidents. 



son restored a part of Tennessee to the Union. Johnson's turn 
came now. President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor 
of the State. He entered upon his office with a zeal which 
had been inflamed by his persecutions. " He sent the Mayor 
of Nashville and the City Council to the penitentiary for refus- 
ing to take the oath of allegiance." He threatened his enemies 
with prison and hanging. When the rebel armies again entered 
the State, and the timid began to falter, Governor Johnson's 
words went like an arrow to its mark : " I am no military man, 
but any one who talks of surrendering I will shoot." 

The speeches and deeds of the loyal Tennessee Governor 
were widely related throughout the North and created profound 
admiration. 

When the National Republican Convention met in Balti- 
more, June, 1864, and re-nominated Abraham Lincoln for the 
presidency, Andrew Johnson was nominated for the vice-presi- 
dency. 

A great mass-meeting assembled at Nashville to ratify his 
nomination. The Governor addressed it with characteristic 
boldness. "In trying to save slavery," he said, "you killed it, 
and lost your own freedom." 

Perhaps the greatest day in Andrew Johnson's life was 
October 24, 1864, when he made his famous address to a dense 
mass of colored people in Nashville. The hour, the scene and 
the circumstances, all combined to kindle his imagination, and 
to bring out the whole man at his best. The speech filled his 
vast audience with wild enthusiasm ; but when Johnson reached 
his grand climax and declared himself the Moses who would 
lead the people from bondage into liberty and peace, the tumult 
that followed, the ecstasy of joy that broke out in sobs and 
shouts, and in a wild uproar of voices, baffled all description. As 
Andrew Johnson descended that day from the steps of the capi- 
tol, where, no doubt, every word of his burning speech had 



Andrew Johnson. 3 ^ 3 



been uttered in perfect sincerity, he left the proudest scene of 
his life. 

That speech electrified the North. A little later Andrew- 
Johnson was elected Vice-President of the United States. Six 
weeks afterward he succeeded Abraham Lincoln. 

There was alike throughout the North and the South, a 
belief that the new President would deal in a far sterner temper 
with the conquered people than his murdered predecessor 
would have done. Andrew Johnson came from a locality where 
all the passions of war had run rampant. They had filled all 
the fair land of East Tennessee with vindictive madness. The 
new President had been goaded by cruel wrongs to himself and 
to those dearest to him. It was feared alike by friends and foes 
that, now he v/as invested with the vast powers of the presi- 
dency, he would use them in a high-handed and remorseless 
fashion. All Johnson's speeches at this critical period, as well 
as his own character, tended to emphasize the general impres- 
sion that he would adopt a vindictive and resentful policy. He 
talked of " punishing treason and hanging traitors " in a way 
that ill accorded with that generous temper in which the North 
desired to close the long civil contest. 

But in a little while, to the boundless amazement of the 
country, the new President's views and feelings underwent a total 
change. The causes which brought this about have perhaps 
never been fully explained. His own character had much to 
do with the matter. Then he fell under powerfully persua- 
sive and subtle Cabinet influences. It is a marvelous fact 
that in a few weeks the President's attitude toward the leaders 
of the rebellion and the conquered States, was precisely the 
opposite of his former one. He no longer denounced and 
threatened. All his speeches and acts indicated his inflexible 
purpose to forget the past and to exact no safeguards for the 
future. 



314 Our Presidents. 



It should always be remembered, in explanation of Andrew 
Johnson's course at this time, that he was by birth, instincts, 
training, a Southerner, though he had in the Civil War 
thoroughly identified himself with the North. But with the 
return of peace the old feelings reasserted themselves. The 
thought of becoming the friend and benefactor of the South 
must have gratified his vanity, as well as his more generous 
feelings. No doubt he had had in early life to endure many 
slights and indignities in a locality where the spirit of caste was 
strong and social exclusiveness had very much the force of 
law. 

Andrew Johnson was not the kind of man to forget words 
or acts that had stung him ; he could not fail to reflect that 
the tables were turned now. Those who had formerly felt them- 
selves greatly his social superiors would be glad to sue humbly 
for his favor. 

However natural this feeling was, it was not the magnanimous 
one of the true statesman. It was the President's misfortune 
that he could not in his high place divest himself of all merely 
personal considerations. His conceit, too, had been intensified 
by all the circumstances of his life. His inborn obstinacy, how- 
ever it might have braced him in his early battle with fortune, 
could only be harmful where the interests of a great nation 
were at stake. In a little while Abraham Lincoln's successor 
had proved he was not the man for the time and the post. 

The Reconstruction policy, the long and bitter quarrel with 
Congress, cannot be dwelt on here. As the controversy 
deepened, the President's anger was inflamed, his will was 
hardened, his tongue was loosened, he forgot the dignities of 
his position, and in his famous tour to Chicago, he denounced 
his opponents, inveighed against Congress, and lauded his own 
policy in a series of singularly unfortunate public speeches. 

These coarse and denunciatory harangues, which had much 



Andrew Johnson. 3 ^ 5 



of the rant and bravado of rustic stump oratory, disgusted and 
embittered the people. The party which had elected Johnson, 
the soldiers who had saved the Union, felt that he had betrayed 
them. 

The President, exasperated by opposition, went on his mad, 
defiant course. He vetoed bill after bill which Congress had 
passed, until that body, insulted and outraged, resolved on his 
impeachment. 

The trial of President Johnson took place before the Senate, 
and was conducted with a " solemnity, dignity and order befit- 
ting the occasion." The charges, however, on which he was 
tried did not make the real count against him in the thought of 
Congress or of the people. He was saved from deposition by 
a single vote. 

There is no doubt that, to the last, he believed himself in 
the right. He probably anticipated that in the end the nation 
would vindicate his course by a re-election, but the nominations 
of 1868 convinced him of his mistake. 

Andrew Johnson must have retired from the presidency an 
embittered and disappointed man. In his own eyes he was still 
a hero ; and in his prolonged battle with Congress, he always 
regarded himself as playing the part of a pure and enlightened 
patriotism. 

The President had a kind heart, and many qualities which 
endeared him to his family and neighbors. He had a shrewd, 
alert face, with large rugged features and keen eyes. One 
finds in his whole expression, hints of those qualities which had 
enabled him to surmount all the obstacles that stood in the path 
of success, and which would have disheartened a nature of less 
verve and determination. 

It was his good fortune to have women of fine character 
always about him. The wife to whom his youth owed so much, 
was too broken in health to take on herself the duties of 



3i6 Our Presidents. 



mistress of the White House, but her daughter, Mrs. Martha Pat- 
terson, took her mother's place. Its responsibiUties were at this 
time particularly onerous. Mrs. Patterson entered the White 
House to find it in a greatly disordered condition, and she 
devoted all her energy and taste to supervising its restoration. 
Aided by an appropriation from the government, she succeeded 
in making a vast improvement in the interior. 

In these arrangements, as well as in her social duties, Mrs. 
Patterson was assisted by her sister, Mrs. Stover. But the 
ladies of Mr. Johnson's family probably felt few regrets when 
the time came to leave the White House and return to th^ir 
home in Tennessee. 

The President's Southern friends had applauded his course, 
and it was a necessity of his ardent, active nature that he 
should resume his public life. After a period of rest he 
engaged once more with all his old fervor in the political con- 
flicts of the time. 

Six years after he retired from the presidency Tennessee 
once more sent Andrew Johnson to the Senate. A fortnight 
after he took his seat he made a speech which proved that 
time had not ameliorated the old temper, the old convictions 
and personal resentments. 

In that session Andrew Johnson did his last public work. 
When Congress closed he returned to Tennessee, and in the 
following July, 1875, he died suddenly while visiting his 
youngest daughter at Carter's Station. 

Those who loved him were all about him at the last, and he 
no doubt died in the confident belief that he had served his 
country with as unsullied a patriotism as that of Andrew 
Jackson. 




^^^/. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 

One evening, in the spring of 1861, there was great excite- 
ment at Hanover, a small town a few miles to the south of 
Galena, Illinois. The firing on Fort Sumter, the call for vol- 
unteers to defend the Union, had thoroughly aroused all the 
Northern land. A mass-meeting had been appointed at the 
town-hall, but the crowds that responded had proved too 
large for the building. At last they repaired to the Presby- 
terian church, an old brick structure with ample accommoda- 
tions. On that spring night such meetings were being held 
over all the loyal country. The people of Hanover, fired by 
addresses ringing with courage and patriotism, were reluctant 
to separate. At last a comparative stranger in the crowded 
assembly was called upon for a speech ; he rose with an 
embarrassed air ; he was a man of rather heavy build, of aver- 
age height, with square features and resolute jaw ; he was con- 
spicuous on this occasion for the old blue army-coat — the only 
one in the audience — which he wore ; he had been through the 
Mexican War, and later had been promoted to a captaincy, 
when with his regiment on the Pacific coast. 

A silence fell upon the large audience, and all eyes were 
turned to the man standing there in his blue army-coat. At 
last he said, in a quiet, familiar fashion, and with a good deal 
of effort : 

" Boys, I can't make a speech. I never made a speech in 
my life. But when the time comes to go to the front, I am 
ready to go with you." 

The man who said this in the old brick meeting-house at 
Hanover was Ulysses S. Grant. 



Our Presidents. 



It is worth while looking at him a moment as he stands 
there, reluctant and shy, with no gifts or graces of oratory, the 
only distinction he had ever won, that captain's old blue army- 
coat. 

On the night when he made that brief speech in Hanover, 
Ulysses Grant was barely thirty-nine years old. There was 
nothing in his past or his present which made the outlook for 
his future a promising one. Indeed, most men in his case might 
have felt that the " run of luck " had been particularly against 
them. 

There is no story of poverty and bitter hardships to record 
of his beginnings. They form, in this respect, a sharp contrast 
to those of Abraham Lincoln. Ulysses Grant was born April 
29, 1822, at Point Pleasant, in Clermont County, Ohio. He 
came of old English stock ; his ancestors had emigrated to 
Massachusetts during the earliest years of the colony. Nearly 
a century and a half later, one of the race was present at 
the battle of Bunker Hill ; he afterward emigrated to Ohio. 
The old soldier was not thrifty, and his son, Jesse, had a 
hand-to-hand battle with fate in the new country beyond the 
Alleghanies. In time he had married, acquired a simple, com- 
fortable home, and his circumstances were probably much better 
than those of many of his neighbors, when his son, Ulysses, first 
saw the light on the banks of the Ohio. 

In the autumn of the following year the family removed to 
Georgetown in the adjoining county. The boy's earliest mem- 
ories clustered about this place, for the childhood and boyhood 
of Ulysses S. Grant were passed in this county-seat, on what 
was then the Western frontier. 

They were pleasant memories, and the man liked to dwell 
on them when his life had reached the zenith of its success and 
glory. His childhood opened in a simple, wholesome atmos- 
phere, where all the influences were kindly, and the home 



Ulysses S. Grant. 319 



affections strong. The boy's energies were early stimulated, 
and his muscles developed by various out-door work, which he 
probably never regarded as hardship. Ulysses' father com- 
bined leather manufacturing with farming. At seven or eight 
the boy drove the wagons loaded with wood from the forest to 
the house. " At eleven he was strong enough to hold a plow." 
After that time his history, until he was seventeen, is that of a 
contented, industrious, good-tempered home boy. It was a 
life which lacked, of course, some of the advantages and refin- 
ing influences of an older phase of civilization ; but it was a 
happy, wholesome life for a boy. When Ulysses Grant looked 
back upon it no gaunt face of the wolf cast its shadow inside 
the simple door of his home. The kindly father and mother 
were there, and the family discipline was so light that it might 
have proved harmful to a boy of a different temperament and 
tendencies. The parents " never scolded or punished their 
children." If Ulysses, when the work was done, went his own 
way, it was one of simple, rational games and pastimes. He 
had a passion for horses, and was on the back of one as often 
and as long as possible ; he went fishing and swimming in the 
creek in summer, and had jolly times skating and sleigh-riding 
in the winter ; a rather shy, silent, independent boy, not given 
to sowing wild oats, but putting his heart into his work or his 
play, and in either to be depended upon. 

What was of vastly more importance, Ulysses had the best 
school advantages which the neighborhood afforded. These 
were slender enough at best. The father, an intelligent man, 
much given to reading, deplored his own scant schooling 
''which had been limited to six months," and was resolved 
that his young son should have a better chance ; he sent him 
regularly to school, and this was better than not going at all, 
even with the very meager teaching he received. What golden 
opportunities young Grant's would have seemed to Abraham 



320 Our Presidents. 



Lincoln, born across the line in Kentucky thirteen years before 
him ! But the struggles and hardships of the latter's boyhood 
and youth form a much more picturesque and dramatic history 
than that of Ulysses Grant's smoother, happier one. 

He was seventeen when that event occurred which was to 
color and shape all his future life. The father had ambi- 
tions for his son, and when he learned " there was a vacancy 
from the district," applied for the appointment of Ulysses to 
West Point Academy. The appointment came in due time, 
much to the youth's surprise, not greatly at first to his pleasure ; 
he dreaded the examinations, and, with his lack of egotism, 
feared that he should fail in them ; but the father had set his 
heart on the matter, and his will was law ; so Ulysses went to 
West Point. A part of the journey was made by the river 
steamer, a part by the canal boat. The boy saw everything 
with his quiet, observant eyes, among other things, and for the 
first time, a railroad. Still, amid all the novel scenes and 
experiences, the end of the journey was like a grim specter 
perpetually before him ; and he would have been thankful if 
some "temporary injury " had disabled him, so that he could 
have escaped West Point. 

He loitered a little at Philadelphia and New York ; he 
arrived at West Point in the last of May, 1839. Here, much to 
his surprise, he passed the examinations without difficulty. 

His life as a cadet does not appear to have been particu- 
larly agreeable, as his record certainly was not a brilliant one. 
He had not the instincts and habits of the scholar, except for 
mathematics ; for these he had a genius. He read much fic- 
tion at this time, but it was always of the best sort ; he admits, 
with his usual frankness, that time hung heavily with him ; he 
would have been glad, at least during the first year, if Con- 
gress had passed the bill under discussion for abolishing the 
Military Academy ! 



Ulysses S. Grant. 321 



It is evident that the Ohio boy was home-sick and hungered 
for a sight of the household faces, and for the free, wide, out- 
door life, the long horse back rides in the woods and along 
the rough old country roads about Georgetown. 

When General Scott came to review the cadets at West 
Point, young Grant was quite dazzled by the superb figure, the 
commanding air, the showy uniform ; he regarded Scott as the 
man of men, and had a " momentary presentiment " that " he 
should one day occupy the General's place on a review." Be- 
yond this he seems to have had no military ambitions and no 
intention of even remaining in the army. 

At the end of two years he was home again for the summer 
furlough, but this time he went to Bethel, twelve miles froin 
Georgetown, where the family were now living. His happiness 
was greatly enhanced by the possession of a young horse which 
had been purchased for his use during the furlough. 

On his return to West Point time hung somewhat less 
heavily. The life there, with its unvarying routine, its rigid 
discipline, never suited young Grant ; his health broke seri- 
ously before his graduation ; he had a very stubborn cough, 
and there Avere fears that he had inherited certain consumptive 
tendencies of his family. But he rallied with the return home 
and with the long horseback rides. 

Young Grant graduated about the middle of his class in 
1843. Despite his first aversion to a military life, he had, be- 
fore leaving West Point, made up his mind to enter the army. 
He was "assigned to duty with the Fourth United States In- 
fantry, at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. It was the largest 
military post in the country at that time." 

The young brevet second lieutenant had not been long in 

his new quarters before he visited one of his classmates, whose 

family were living a few miles from the barracks, on an estate 

called White Haven. Several young people, brothers and sis- 

21 



# 
;22 Our Presidents. 



ters of his classmate, were in the household. Lieutenant 
Grant found the family at White Haven so hospitable and 
agreeable that he often rode over to see his young classmate. 

Here he must frequently have heard the name of the eldest 
sister, Miss Julia Dent, who had been for several years at 
boarding-school in St. Louis. In the following year she 
returned home. The shy, silent officer was at once attracted 
by his classmate's sister. His visits from that time had a new 
interest. The young people saw a good deal of each other, 
and a friendship, simple, cordial, natural, like the character of 
both, grew tip between the young officer and the girl, fresh 
from boarding-school. They had frequent walks and horse- 
back drives together. They made social visits to the people in 
the neighborhood ; and all the while Grant v/as finding a 
deeper charm in the society of the bright, attractive girl, but 
neither appears to have had at this time any thoughts of a closer 
relation than their existing one. 

So little wish or desire had the young lieutenant to remain 
in the army that, soon after he reached Jefferson Barracks, he 
applied for the post of Assistant Professor of Mathematics at 
West Point. The reply was so encouraging that he was satis- 
fied he should soon have obtained his appointment, had not 
the Mexican War broken out and changed all his plans. 

At this time the annexation of Texas had become a matter 
of absorbing interest in the politics of the country. Young 
Grant had been, from the beginning, utterly opposed to a meas- 
ure which shocked all his instincts of honor and justice. 

He had obtained leave of absence for a short trip to Ohio, 
when his regiment was ordered to Louisiana. He was at home 
when he learned this. He learned something else at the same 
time. The prospect of a separation from Miss Dent revealed 
to him the real nature of his feeling for her. 

It was like his sturdy, straightforvv^ard character to resolve 



Ulysses S. Grant. 323 



to see her at once, to tell his story and learn his fate. He 
returned to the barracks, obtained a farther leave of absence, 
and immediately sought an interview with Miss Dent, swimming 
his horse with great difficulty over a swollen creek before he 
could reach her side. 

The shy lieutenant stammered his story in the young girl's 
ear ; but a true, manly, and loyal heart went v/ith the few awk- 
ward words. Miss Dent had discerned the man behind all the 
silence and the shyness. The breaking up of the regiment at 
the barracks had brought to the joyous, warm-hearted girl some 
unaccountable sense of loss and loneliness. 

Young Grant's words revealed her heart to herself, and her 
reply must have made him the happiest of men. 

The youth of both, and the lieutenant's circumstances, did 
not permit any thoughts of immediate marriage, but the affec- 
tion of the two was from that moment deep and loyal. It 
stood the test of long separation and adverse fortunes. That 
young girl, to whom Ulysses Grant stammered his proposal, 
was to prove herself in all his marvelously varied career the 
chief happiness of his life. 

Grant followed his regiment, the Fourth Infantry, to Louisi- 
ana, and the young people had to content themselves with fre- 
quent letters. The lieutenant did not carry his heart into the 
business when he went into camp at Fort Jessup, Louisiana, 
betwixt the Red River and the Sabine. Whatever ostensible 
reasons might be assigned for the presence of the United States 
troops on the scene, he knew perfectly well, as everybody else, 
did, that they were intended as a menace against Mexico. All 
his life Ulysses Grant never wavered in the conviction that the 
first war in which he was engaged was a wrong and a shame — 
the injustice of a strong nation to a weaker one. In a few 
simple, straightforward words he characterizes the military 
occupation and annexation of Texas as " a conspiracy to ac- 



i24 Our Presidents. 



quire territory out of which slave States might be formed for 
the Union." It is, however, only justice to add that, having 
forced the war upon the feeble, helpless government, and 
obtained a victory so thorough and complete that the conquered 
country lay prostrate and helpless at the feet of its powerful 
foe, the United States did not behave after the usual manner 
of conquerors. The American nation paused at its moment 
of triumph, made a treaty of peace, and paid fifteen millions 
for the wild territories it might easily have overran and seized. 

Young Grant's mihtary career in Mexico can barely be 
glanced at now : he did his part honestly and bravely wher- 
ever it fell to him, whether it was in the long monotonous 
marches through the torrid, arid country, or on the varied bat- 
tle-fields of Palo Alto, of Resaca de la Palma, of Monterey, or 
in the siege of Vera Cruz and the capture of the city of Mex- 
ico ; he served first under General Taylor, and afterward under 
General Scott. One gets an impression that the young lieuten- 
ant had to fall back on all his dogged staying power to get 
through with those four years of service in that country of wide, 
desolate plains, and picturesque mountain passes. His ambi- 
tion scertainly were not stimulated by rapid promotion. The 
earliest which he received was at the city of Mexico, where he 
was advanced to a first lieutenancy. Later, he was regimental 
(juarter-master and commissary. 

Little, however, as he imagined it, this Mexican campaign ser- 
vice was to prove invaluable to himself and to his country. In his 
subordinate place he was learning much of the business of war, 
and, in his shrewd, silent way, forming his own tenacious opinions. 
In that long campaign, and amid the good-comradeship of army 
life, he was acquiring much knowledge of men, then greatly his 
superiors, whom he was afterward to meet as foes, on equal 
ground, and on vastly larger battle-fields. He was faithful and 
untiring in the discharge of all his duties ; but he exhibited 



Ulysses S. Grant. 325 



no brilliant qualities. Nobody certainly credited him with a 
spark of genius, and he himself would be the last man to do that. 

When the treaty was ratified and the victorious army left 
Mexico, Grant's regiment was ordered into camp at Mississippi 
in the heats of the summer of 1848. Here he obtained leave of 
absence for four months. He soon set out for White Haven. 
It must have been a happy hour for the long absent lover when 
he greeted his betrothed once more. He was married to Miss 
Dent, August 22, 1848. 

In April of the following year he was ordered for garrison 
duty to Detroit, Michigan. He remained here two years. In 
185 1 the Fourth Infantry was sent to California. It was a 
wonder that any of the regiment lived to get there, after the 
discomforts of the long, perilous trip, and the unutterable hor- 
rors of the Isthmus, which they reached in midsummer, and 
where they encountered cholera. Between the dying men and 
the defaulting contractor. Grant, who was regimental quarter- 
master, had his hands full ; he worked quiet and resolute through 
the dreadful time, and early in December reached San Francisco, 
with all the regiment that had survived the cholera. Here new 
scenes awaited him : he found himself in the midst of a strange, 
rough, picturesque life ; in short, he Avas now in the midst of that 
gold-mining frenzy, which makes the early periods of California 
history more exciting and dramatic than the wildest dreams of 
the novelist. Lieutenant Grant had a chance to study the novel 
world about him in his shrewd, penetrating fashion, before he 
was ordered to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River. 

In 1853 he was promoted to a captaincy. His new com- 
mand was stationed at Humboldt Bay, California, in the Red- 
wood region ; he remained here, however, only a short period. 

By this time the charm of the Western life had exercised 
its fascination upon Grant ; he had grown so attached to the 
country that he was resolved on making it his future home. 



326 Our Presidents. 



But his domestic affections were very strong, and he could not 
be content to remain longer away from his wife and his two 
young sons. 

The captain's pay was not sufficient to support the little 
family in California. He finally resigned his post and returned 
to the East. This was in the summer of 1854. 

Captain Grant was now thirty-two : he had been in the army 
eleven years ; he certainly had not a brilliant record and his 
promotion had been slow and slight. 

The autumn of 1854 had no encouraging outlook. A man 
with Grant's military education and habits would not be likely 
to find farming a congenial pursuit, but this alone opened to 
him. Mrs. Grant owned a farm near her old home at White 
Haven, and here the family resolved to make their future home. 
But there was no house on the land : the owners had no money 
to buy stock. Grant faced his fate manfully and set about 
raising a roof-tree for the wife and the boys ; he worked hard 
at building the house, and performed the varied drudgery of 
farm- work, just as he had done when he was a boy. Sometimes 
" he loaded a wagon with cord-wood and took it for sale to St. 
Louis." The lines must have appeared to him very hard ones. 
At last the fever and ague came on and shook even his iron 
constitution. In a little while the farming proved a failure. 
The Grant farm v/as sold at auction. 

A trial at real-estate business with a relative in St. Louis 
followed. This did not prosper. Captain Grant did not have 
the money-making faculty. 

In May, i860, he removed to Galena and took a clerkship in 
his father's leather store. His two younger brothers were there. 
It was the elder Grant's intention to establish his three sons in 
the business ; but the second one died in the following year of 
consumption. 

This is a brief outline of the history of the man who stood 



Ulysses S. Grant. 3^7 



in his old Mexican army-coat in the brick Presbyterian meeting- 
house at Hanover, and made his short, characteristic speech 
to the breathless crowd. Since he left the army, seven years 
before, his life had been a losing struggle with fate. He had not 
complained overmuch. Under the silence was a great deal of 
quiet, patient pluck. The best thing, thus far, that had ever 
come to him was the chance in the leather store and the pros- 
pect of the later partnership. 

But the hour for the simple, quiet man to come to his place 
had struck at last. The North, waiting listless and incredulous 
while the South gathered its forces and trained its men for the 
coming struggle, was roused at last. The air was full of prep- 
aration for battle. The need of soldiers to defend the Union 
superseded everything else. There was an imperative call for 
capable and trained officers to command the enthusiastic, undis- 
ciplined volunteers, who had not the faintest idea what war 
really meant, and who now felt for the first time the passion of 
patriotism, the duty of living or dying for one's country. 

Grant kept his word. The leather store at Galena knew 
him no more ; he declined the captaincy of a company of 
volunteers, but he served them as drill-master, and when the 
time came he marched with them to Springfield. On the point 
of returning home, he was accosted by the Illinois Governor, to 
whom he had never spoken, and was offered a position in the 
Adjutant-General's office. This was accepted at once. From 
this time Grant had his hands full ; he had charge of mustering 
the ten Illinois regiments into semce. 

A little later he had a new experience ; he beheld for the first 
time a secession flag waving defiantly in the air. The scene 
occurred at St. Louis, whither he had gone on his way to Belle- 
ville, the mustering place of the regiments of Southern Illinois. 
The sight of that symbol of rebellion kindled all Grant's patri- 
otic wrath. A little later he saw it come down from the seces- 



328 Our Presidents. 



sion headquarters, and the old flag that he loved, in whose 
service he had spent his young manhood, and whose honor he 
was so splendidly to vindicate during the next four years, went 
up in place of the other. 

Did Grant remember, one wonders, how a little while before 
he had driven his wagon-load of wood through the streets of 
that very city ? If he did, he was not ashamed of it. Indeed, 
I think he was always rather proud that he had done his 
part bravely in the dark hour, in the lowly place. 

About this time he made his application to General Thomas 
for command of a regiment. He merely stated his past services, 
and brought no influential names to back his application. In- 
deed, he owns that he felt some distrust as to his own ability to 
take charge of a regiment. But he might have spared himself 
all scruples. No notice was taken of his application. 

This act must have been sufficiently mortifying. Grant, 
however, was to have his regiment. He had gone to visit his 
parents, now removed to Covington, Kentucky, and he had 
twice attempted to have an interview with General McClellan, 
whose headquarters were then in Cincinnati, but had not suc- 
ceeded. He aspired at this time to a position on the General's 
staff. On Grant's return to Springfield he learned that Gov- 
ernor Yates, impressed by the efficient service he had rendered 
in mustering in the regiments, had appointed him Colonel of 
the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers. He joined them at their 
camp on the State fair grounds near Springfield. Ulysses Grant 
was now in the war. 

The history of the next four years cannot be told here. 
The record of Grant's military career has been amply written 
by his friends and his foes; more than all, it was written by 
himself, in weariness and suffering, and amid the shadows of 
approaching death. 

It is a significant fact that when the newly appointed Colo- 



Ulysses S. Grant. 329 



nel led his regiment to what he supposed v/as to be their first 
engagement, " his heart kept getting higher and liigher until he 
felt as though it were in his throat." He was at this time with 
his regiment at Salt River in Missouri. A Confederate force 
was encamped at Florida, a small village, twenty-five miles away. 
Grant was ordered to move against the enemy. 

It was a dismal march for the new Colonel and his unused 
troops. As they passed through the thinly settled country, the 
frightened people fled as they would before hordes of j^ainted 
savages. 

When at last they ascended the hill below which the enemy 
was supposed to be encamped, Grant, to use his own words, 
"would have given anything to be back in Illinois." The 
regiment reached the summit. There was no waving of flags, 
no flashing of arms, no sign of a soldier in all that wide summer 
stillness. The enemy had decamped in haste as soon as they 
learned Grant was on the march, and were now forty miles away. 
If he had dreaded to meet them, they were at least equally 
afraid of him. Grant was on the threshold of his new career. 
This experience was invaluable to the future General ; he was 
never thereafter afraid to face the enemy in the field, though he 
admits that he often felt " anxious " on the eve of battle. 

The new President was, in this terrible summer of 1861, 
desirous above all things to obtain officers of proved ability. 
Washburne, the new member from the Galena district, recom- 
mended Grant. He was accordingly promoted to the rank of 
Brigadier-general. This was an immense advance from that of 
drill-master, a few weeks before, of the Galena volunteers. 

Not long afterward he was assigned to the important com- 
mand of the South-eastern District of Missouri, with its head- 
quarters at Cairo, Illinois. It was here that Grant first showed 
his real mettle. 

Kentucky was at this critical moment trembling in the 



330 Our Presidents. 



balance, and Paducah on the Mississippi resolved to go the way 
of the Southern States. 

On the day after Grant reached Cairo, he learned that the 
enemy were intending to seize and hold Paducah in the great 
State that, declaring herself neutral, was faltering in her allegi- 
ance to the Union. 

It was early in the following morning when Grant and his 
two regiments debarked on the river shore at Paducah. Dur- 
ing the night the little fleet had made the sail of forty miles, in 
steamers which lay at the Cairo levee. The Confederate flag 
was floating in the breeze of that autumn morning. The Con- 
federate army, four thousand strong, lay scarcely a dozen miles 
away. 

Grant's arrival was just in the nick of time. The inhab- 
itants, amazed and alarmed, made no resistance. Grant assured 
them of his protection. The Confederate forces did not appear. 
The secession flag was lowered a second time and Paducah 
was saved to the Union. This was the beginning of that great 
military career which was to reach its triumphant close one 
April day, almost four years later, in the parlor of a private 
dwelling at Appomattox Station. 

Between that morning of September 6, 1861, and that other 
afternoon of April 9, 1865, ^^^ the names of Belmont, of Fort 
Donelson, of Shiloh, of Vicksburg, of Chattanooga, and later 
and last, of the Army of the Potomac. Each of these names 
means the story of a terrible battle — of a victory that was to 
amaze friends and foes, and a world which watched across the 
seas, intent, breathless, and largely hostile. In a little while 
Grant had learned the greatness and gallantry of the foe with 
whom he was contending. He learned to honor that, as a brave 
soldier must, even while he regarded the Southern cause, to use 
his own words, " as one of the worst for which people evei 
fought, and for which there was the least excuse." 



Ulysses S. Grant. 33 ^ 



But he knew better, perhaps, than any other man, that the 
South was not conquered until she had proved her heroism on 
every battle-field where he met her, not conquered until she had 
given the flower of her youth, the strength and glory of her 
manhood, to the long agony, knew that when the hour of sur- 
render struck on that April afternoon, it was not until every 
Southern home was impoverished by the war, and every South- 
ern hearth-stone darkened by the shadow of death. 

The Brigadier-General of Cairo had meanwhile become the 
Lieutenant-General in the Army of the United States, and the 
Proclamation of Emancipation had freed every slave in the 
Union. 

The series of splendid victories had not, of course, been 
easily won against so brave and determined a foe. Grant had 
had the usual fate of great commanders. At the beginning he 
had encountered distrust, jealousy, opposition. His reply was 
the all-sufficing one of some fresh victory on the battle-field. 

A woman's opinion is not, of course, entitled to weight in 
military matters ; but it has always seemed to the writer that 
the sufficient reply to all adverse criticism of Grant's military 
genius was the fact that wherever he went during the Civil War 
with him also went Victory. 

Those who admit this still insist that he had a better chance 
than any who preceded him in command of the Army of the 
Potomac, that he had larger liberty of action, and vastly greater 
resources at his disposal than any other general. 

Without questioning this, it still remains true that the drill- 
master of the Galena Volunteers, the captain in the Hanover 
meeting-house, in his blue army-coat, had no prestige and no 
influential friends to aid him. If ever a man made his own 
way to the front, it was Ulysses S. Grant. 

The years which followed the close of the war. and the great 
questions which shook the country, the Reconstruction of the 



• 
;32 Oitr Presidents. 



South, the relations of the President to Congress, belong to an 
ampler biography than this. The nation showed its faith in 
the Soldier with whom it had gone through the war by bestow- 
ing on him the highest place in its gift, the presidency of the 
United States. 

He was inaugurated with the most imposing display which 
the capital had ever witnessed. Naturally simple and unosten- 
tatious in his tastes, he yet enjoyed his fame and greatness, and 
all the visible signs of it. Had he owned Mount Vernon it is 
hardly probable that he would, like Washington, after he had 
freed his country, have been eager to retire to his farm. 

His first administration went its smooth, prosperous way. 
When the four years expired. Grant was re-elected with great 
enthusiasm, and by an immense majority to a second presiden- 
tial terra. This proved a period of great financial distress to 
the country. A terrible business panic prostrated the indus- 
tries of the land, wrecked many fortunes, and filled the nation, 
which had gone on its prosperous ways, reckless and extrava- 
gant, with depression and disaster. The administration and 
the Republican party were held more or less responsible for the 
financial reverses. Some of the President's most trusted advis- 
ers lost the confidence of the people. But they did not lose 
faith in their Soldier amid the general feeling of depression and 
insecurity with which his last term closed. 

Soon afterward General Grant made the tour of the world. 
All his life he had been fond of travel, and had felt a strong 
curiosity to behold foreign lands. In the prime of his years, in 
perfect health, and with sufficient fortune at command, he 
resolved to indulge the longing of his youth and go around the 
planet. 

The little party which accompanied him from Philadelphia, 
among whom were his wife and the youngest of his three sons, 
sailed on the steamer Indiana in 1872. "The flags waved their 



Ulysses S. Grant. 



farewell from all the shipping in the Delaware," and he heard 
the thunder of " a parting salute from the guns of United States 
war vessels." 

From the time that he landed on the English coast it was 
one long, triumphal progress for Ulysses Grant ; his journey over 
the island, across the continent, around the world, reads in its 
simplest recital, almost like some Arabian Night's tale. 

The sovereigns, the kingdoms, the rulers of the world, as he 
moved from one country to another, exerted themselves to do 
the soldier honor. He was the chief guest in palaces. Great 
cities offered him, with stately ceremonials, their freedom. The 
world, which a little while before had not greatly beUeved in 
him, was eager now to see the American who had come amongst 
them with his unparalleled military prestige. 

But it was not only the great, the wise, the powerful, who 
gathered curious about him. When, at last, after his long Euro- 
pean tour, he went to Egypt to see the records of her ancient 
civilization, dusky sheiks and warriors of the desert spurred 
from afar to look on the great Western commander. 

At length Grant turned away from Europe and set his face 
toward India. He lingered for a while, intent and curious, in 
that old cradle of the Aryan race ; then he visited China, and, 
last of all, Japan. From this place he crossed the Pacific and 
landed at San Francisco, to be welcomed home with immense 
enthusiasm. 

All this pomp and glory would have dazzled any but a calm 
and well-balanced brain. Grant maintained through all the 
long ordeal his native simplicity, his kindliness, his modesty. 
He who owed all his glory to the Civil War found no pleasure 
in military pomp and parade. He declined a review of the 
French amtiy. The glitter of arms, the bravery of uniforms, 
the rhythmic march of columns, had no delight for him. " He 
never wanted to hear another drum beat." 



334 Our Presidents. 



Not long after his return he chose the city of New York for 
his home. She was proud of her illustrious citizen, and the 
Republic, if she may sometimes have forgotten to reward great 
historic services, was certainly generous to Grant. 

After that April day when the North went wild with joy 
because the war was ended, Grant's position with the people 
much resembled that of the Duke of Wellington with the 
English nation after the battle of Waterloo. 

Honors and wealth were heaped upon the victorious Gen- 
eral. One subscription list raised him a quarter of a million 
dollars. Another provided him with a hundred thousand to 
purchase a home in New York for the remainder of his life. 

He had a summer cottage at Long Branch. Its simplicity 
suited his quiet tastes. From its verandas he could watch the 
shipping of the world come and go, while grateful winds from 
the sea cooled the hot breath of the Northern summer. 

In this retreat and amid the household ties so dear to him, 
the domestic qualities of General Grant — his devotion to his 
family, his kindliness, his thoughtful care for others, his sim- 
plicity of bearing, and his real sincerity — revealed themselves in 
their most attractive aspects. Those who saw him in his home- 
life at Long Branch must have felt that they had seen some- 
thing of the real General Grant, which the great public could 
not wholly know. 

In 1880 a determined effort was made by the Republican 
party to nominate General Grant for a third term to the presi- 
dency. This measure was opposed to all the traditions and 
precedents of the Government since the adoption of the Ameri- 
can Constitution. 

The effort met with prolonged and inflexible opposition ; 
but so popular was the soldier, so insistent his support, that 
the contest became an extremely bitter one. It shook the 
Republican party to its center, but at last the delegates to the 



Ulysses S. Grant. 335 



famous convention at Chicago were induced to unite in nomi- 
nating James A. Garfield for the presidency. 

" Call no man happy until he dies." The famous maxim 
of the ancients had a modern illustration in the case of Ulysses 
Grant. Fortune, fame, health, affection — all the best gifts of 
the gods — he had these in abundance ; he seemed to have 
reached the apex of human success and prosperity. 

The first trouble came when, one evening, leaving his car- 
riage and about to enter his home, he slipped on the icy side- 
walk. The fall shook his iron frame. The accident confined 
him to his chamber a long time ; he was so crippled that any 
exertion was extremely painful to him. 

In May, 1884, the great blow fell. One does not like to 
linger on the time or the story. There was a period when the 
nation held its breath in dismay, learning that the weight of 
that great name had been lent to a delusion and a fraud. 

But in a little while the truth came to light. The soldier, 
the ex-President, came out of the trial, which wrecked the firm 
in which he had been senior partner, with his honor and hon- 
esty undimmed ; he had been the victim of too large faith in 
others, and his present fortunes had been engulfed with the 
ruined firm. 

The thunderbolt which, out of a clear sky, fell upon Gen- 
eral Grant that May day, the loss and anguish that followed, 
make this period the darkest of his life. 

But the end of all earthly griefs was now rapidly approach- 
ing for him. 

During the summer of 1884, while he was at Long Branch, 
General Grant began to feel mysterious pains in his throat. 
He at last reluctantly, and to gratify his alarmed wife, sub- 
mitted to an examination. The recent suffering was explained 
by a " cancerous affection of the throat." 

Tlie disease made its approaches slowly but surely. All 



33^ Our Presidents. 



the heroism of Grant's nature, all its patience and quiet strength, 
came to the surface now. The man of the victorious battle- 
fields turned, as his sun was setting, to his pen. With death 
staring him in the face, and with a sense of his broken fortunes 
harassing him by night and by day, he resolved to write the 
memoirs of his life. 

To undertake such a task, and to carry it to its completion 
in a couple of large volumes, amid weakness, pain and growing 
disease, required a patient, sustained heroism, which, in some 
of its aspects, surpassed the greatest victory Grant had ever 
won on the battle-field. 

In March, 1885, a bill was passed in Congress once more 
creating Ulysses S. Grant a General of the Army. This gave him 
immense gratification. The old forces of his constitution ral- 
lied for a brief time. The contract for the publication of the 
memoirs was signed. Those Grant loved so devotedly were 
now amply provided for. 

Early in June he left the noise and heats of that city where 
he had received such honor and glory, and endured such agony 
of soul and body, and went to a quiet cottage at Mount Gre- 
gor, near Saratoga. 

Here he gradually failed until after midsummer. He 
waited quietly, patiently, bravely, with the faith and the hope 
of a Christian for the death that was slowly but surely coming. 

It came for Ulysses Grant July 23, 1885. 




Sji^e^o^-Q 



RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES. 

" An officer fit for duty, who at this crisis would abandon 
his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress, ought to be 
scalped." 

In August, 1864, a brevet Major General, who had won his 
title by gallant services in the West Virginia campaign, ex- 
pressed himself in these words. They have the ring of a noble 
patriotism. They were the reply of the man who had been for 
the first time nominated to Congress by a district of his native 
State. He was in the field, and a friend urged him to return 
home awhile and canvass for the election. The heart of the 
patriot, the spirit of the soldier, spoke in this prompt, decided 
answer. The man who made it was Rutherford B. Hayes. He 
was born in Delaware, Ohio, Oct. 4, 1822. His father had died 
in the previous July. They came of New England stock, with 
its energy and thrift and stanch moral fiber, which, transplanted 
beyond the Alleghanies, laid the foundations of the future great- 
ness of the North-West. 

The Hayes family emigrated from Vermont in the early years 
of the century, and had taken firm root in what was then the 
far West country before the elder died, or his son first saw the 
light. 

The childhood and boyhood of Rutherford B. Hayes was a 
smooth, comfortable, prosperous one. In the quiet home where 
his life had its beginnings, there was no struggle with poverty 
for the widowed mother and her fatherless boy. Rutherford 
went first to the common schools in the neighborhood. Then 
he was sent to the academy at Newport, Ohio, and later he was 



;3o Our Presidents. 



at Middletown, Conn., where he prepared for Kenyon College in 
his native State. 

Here the undergraduate showed his intellectual quality. 
He was not only a fine scholar, but he made his mark in the 
literary societies of his "alma mater." He graduated in 1842 
and won much praise for his valedictory oration. 

He began his legal studies in Columbus, Ohio. Later he 
attended the Harvard Law School for two years in order to 
equip himself thoroughly for the bar. 

Young Hayes entered on the practice of his profession in 
his native State, at Fremont, called at that time Lower San- 
dusky, but his health now broke so seriously that he was com- 
pelled to give up all business and spend a winter at the South, 
where the milder climate restored him. 

On his return to Ohio he established himself at Cincinnati, 
where the real abilities of the young lawyer, his high character, 
and his agreeable social gifts, v/on him many eminent friends. 

In 1852 he married Miss Lucy W. Webb, the daughter of a 
physician in Chillicothe, Ohio. She was a pupil of the Wesleyan 
Female College in Cincinnati. She was a young girl of fine 
character ; she had an ingenuous manner, which was singularly 
attractive, and a face whose bright charm was the index of a 
rare and lovely soul. 

A number of happy, prosperous years followed the marriage. 
Mr. Hayes had a successful law practice and occupied positions 
of honor and responsibility in the city government. 

The firing on Fort Sumter was the signal for an immense 
change in his life. His anti-slavery convictions had been early 
formed and were very decided: he had joined the Republican 
party on its organization. The strength of his opinions, the 
resolution and ardor of his character, were certain to bring him 
into the foreground of affairs at this time. 

A great mass-meeting gathered in Cincinnati. Mr. Hayes was 



Rutherford Bir chard Hayes. 339 



in its midst and was appointed chairman to express the popular 
passion which at that time swept over the North, a great tidal 
wave, carrying everything before it. It was impossible that so 
ardent a patriot, so devoted a friend of the Union, as Mr. Hayes> 
should not come to his place and do his work in the hour when 
his country called upon her sons to save her. 

In a short time the Cincinnati lawyer was appointed Major of 
the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. In September, 1861, 
General Rosecrans, under whom he was serving, appointed him 
Judge-advocate of the Department of Ohio, and in the month 
following he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. 

At the famous battle of South Mountain, September 14, 
1862, the new Colonel carried himself with great gallantry. A 
musket ball struck him in the left arm, but he refused to leave 
the field and at last had to be borne from it. His wound 
forced him to leave the army for awhile, but as soon as he 
recovered he was once more at the head of his troops. 

The details of the military career of General Hayes do not 
belong to this brief narrative. It was a career of varied and 
brilliant services and of hard-fought engagements, during which 
he always rushed into the thick of danger. Where the blows fell 
thickest his soldiers were always certain to find their commander. 

His miUtary record forms a part of the glory of the campaign 
in West Virginia. During the war he was wounded four times ; 
and the names of Winchester, and Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek, 
where his horse was shot under him, must always be associated 
with his own. His services now won him a fresh promotion 
and he became Brigadier- General. 

It was at this time that the nomination to Congress occurred, 
with the characteristic refusal to obtain leave of absence and 
work for fresh laurels in the political field. 

During this time Mrs. Hayes proved herself the true wife 
of a soldier. She visited her husband in camp, where her bright 



34^ Our Presidents. 

v/omanly presence and devoted services to the wounded men 
won their hearts. She mended the rough soldiers' clothes with 
her delicate hands ; she visited the wounded and nursed them 
with a tender sympathy that must have touchingly reminded 
them of the mothers and wives at home. 

Despite his absence from the political arena, General Hayes 
won the election for Congress. In the following spring the war 
closed, and he took his seat in the House, December 4, 1865. 

In his new field General Hayes did work which, though it 
might not be so brilliant as that which he had performed on the 
battle-field, was still of great service to his country. He did not 
display dazzling oratorical gifts, but he was a legislator of strong 
sense and solid judgment : his fearlessness, his high moral sym- 
pathies, his deep instincts for justice and right, won the respect 
and confidence of his colleagues. The measures which he pro- 
moted during that critical period of national legislation were 
always inspired by the large views and the magnanimous temper 
of the statesman. 

The Congressional history of Rutherford B. Hayes belongs, 
like his military one, to a larger narrative. All the honors 
which came to him were unsought, and must have seemed a 
good deal like the gifts of the gods, though they were really 
the result of that wide popular confidence which his character 
and work abundantly inspired. 

In 1867 Ohio elected her Congressman Governor of the 
State. It is a sufficient commentary on his services in that 
responsible post, that he was twice re-elected to it. 

In 1873 Governor Hayes resolved to return to private life 
and make his home in Fremont, Ohio, where he had settled 
in early manhood. 

But the dreams of the quiet life and the fireside happiness 
with his wife and his children were not to be reahzed at that time. 

The National Republican Convention which met at Cincin- 



Rutherford Bir chard Hayes. 341 

nati June 14, 1876, had many brilliant and distinguished men 
among its candidates. At the last, however, Governor Hayes 
carried the nomination for the presidency. 

The contest which followed was strong and acrimonious 
to the last degree. Both parties claimed that it had elected 
its candidate. The country was shaken with the strife. Polit- 
ical passions flamed on every side. There were threats of civil 
war. Foreboding and dismay filled the nation. 

The storm, however, quieted at last. Rutherford Hayes 
took his oath of office and was duly inaugurated President of 
the United States, and the country settled down tranquil and 
confident. 

His administration was one which might have been largely 
anticipated from the character and convictions of the President. 
He had very decided opinions on civil service reform, and he 
made strong and courageous efforts to promote it. But so great 
and far-reaching a reform could not be accomplished in four 
years. The President encountered on tliis whole question bit- 
ter and persistent opposition from some of the leaders in his 
own party, though it is said that during this administration 
" there was far less meddling with party politics on the part of 
officers of the government than at any period since Andrew 
Jackson's time." 

The new and lenient policy which the Executive adopted 
toward the Reconstructed States, ameliorated much bitter sec- 
tional feeling and proved in the end the highest wisdom. 

It is certain that the administration, which began under 
so deep a cloud, closed amid wide tranquillity and prosperity 
throughout the country. 

It has been affirmed by those who ought to know that " the 
success of the Republican Party in the election of 1880 was 
largely owing to the general satisfaction among the people with 
the Hayes Administration." 



342 Oiir Presidents. 



The ex-President returned to the home of his young man- 
hood in Fremont. He was still in the prime of his years, and he 
was fully alive to all the great questions and interests of the day. 

Since his retirement President Hayes has been the recipient 
of many honorary distinctions, and his time is still much 
absorbed " in various philanthropical and useful enterprises." 
A greatly needed reform in the present system of prison gov- 
ernment has of late had a large share of his attention. 

The life of Rutherford B. Hayes does not afford to his biog- 
rapher those dramatic incidents and contrasts which make the 
early lives of many of our Presidents so full of vivid interest and 
adventure. Born in a simple home, with moderate fortunes, 
reared amid refining and elevating influences, he has never 
known the struggle and grind of poverty; never had, in the 
hard upward climb, to break away from the power of early 
habits and of coarse associations. 

The life of this man moves from his birth amid pleasant and 
prosperous ways. Not yet an old man, he is still our only living 
ex-President. The simplicity and dignity of the quiet life at 
Fremont strongly suggests that of some of his earliest predeces- 
sors after they had retired from the executive chair. Mr. Hayes 
is a broad-shouldered, large-built man, with an agreeable pres- 
ence, and a thoughtful, intelligent face. It is full of spirit and 
resolution, while the eyes have a singularly intent, piercing 
glance. 

The ex-President's domestic life has been one of rare happi- 
ness. Mrs. Hayes has lent the grace of her sweet woman's pres- 
ence, the strength of her noble woman's instincts, to all the var- 
ied high positions her husband has filled. When she presided 
at the White House, she proved that, with all her tenderness of 
heart, with all the radiating sweetness and kindliness of her 
nature, she had the courage of her convictions. 

Many a strong man would not have had the moral strength 



Rutherford Bir chard Hayes. 343 



of which this " woman of the hearth and home " showed her- 
self capable, when, making her conscience the supreme arbiter, 
she excluded wine from the tables of the executive mansion. 

Ohio stands with her noble record among her sister States. 
The deeds of her sons have added many a splendid chapter to 
the national history. It is not the least of her honors that when 
she gave in successive administrations two of her daughters to 
represent American womanhood at the White House, one of 
these was Lucy Webb Hayes and the other was Lucretia Ru- 
dolph Garfield. 



^ JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD. 

Among the opening days of September, 1854, a young man, 
who would see his twenty-third birthday before that autumn 
closed, had achieved the great ambition of his youth. What- 
ever high honors, whatever large place, the future might have in 
store for him, it is doubtful whether any of its days could wear 
such a glow of hope and aspiration, could so abound with the 
satisfaction of noble purpose accomplished after long struggle, 
as those which closed the twenty-second summer of his life. 

For James Abram Garfield was going to college. Infinitely 
important as this fact was to himself, it was at that time of little 
consequence to anybody else, with the exception of a small cir- 
cle of his friends and neighbors, the majority of whom would 
probably have disapproved of his going at all. 

The story of his youth, rounding now to its twenty-third 
birthday, is a story of pioneer life in northern Ohio. Its gen- 
eral features have a certain resemblance to Abraham Lincoln's 
early life ; but the Ohio boy was born more than twenty years 
after the Kentucky one, so the beginnings of the younger were 
not so scant and hard as those of the elder. Still, James Gar- 
field's youth is the story of a fatherless boy's long, brave battle 
with hard fortune, under the narrow roof of a widowed mother 
left desolate by her husband's sudden death, and with almost 
no means of support for herself and her young children, in a 
clearing on the edge of the wilderness, in Orange, Cuyahoga 
County, Ohio. 

The boy came of stanch ancestry on both sides. The Gar- 
fields were among the earliest Puritan settlers of the Massa- 



James Abram Garfield. 345 



chusetts Colony, and one, at least, of the race followed the ex- 
ample of his ancestors at Naseby and Marston Moor, and went 
from his home at Lincoln to the fight at Concord. James's 
mother, Eliza Ballou, came of the old French Huguenot breed, 
which left France with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
and whose blood enriched the Protestant communities of two 
continents. 

In the newly-raised log cabin of the Ohio clearing the child 
who came of these two sterling races was born November 19, 
1 83 1. James was the youngest of the children, a brother and 
two sisters having preceded him. He was about a year and a 
half old at the time of his father's death. This was brought 
on by exposure after long fighting a dangerous fire about the 
clearing. 

The boy was happily too young to comprehend the loss 
which had come to him just on the threshold of life. It meant 
struggle, privation, hardship, the wolf close to the door through 
all his boyhood and youth ; but it did not mean the lack of 
tender and noble virtues, of robust health, of steady, wholesome 
industries, of independence and energy that braced the soul 
with courage and hope. The mother, sitting among her young 
brood under the log-cabin roof, could afford little time for the 
luxury of grief. The blow did not crush her as it would a 
weaker-fibered woman. She resolved to keep her roof and her 
boys and girls under it ; and somehow, with the help of the 
elder son and the exercise of unflinching economy, she did it. 

"Go without ! " Tho3e words, which Matthew Arnold tells 
us should form the controlling maxim of every human life, had 
to be lived in all their hard, stern meanings inside that low 
home where the widowed mother and her children kept up 
their long fight with fortune. 

Of course everything had to be as plain and scant as pos- 
sible. One naturally shrinks from going into details, as one 



34^ Our Presidents. 



would from prying too closely into one's neighbor's affairs. 
There is no lack of anecdotes to illustrate the domestic life of 
the humble home. But if James Garfield went barefoot, if he 
wore coarse clothes, and ate plain food, all these things did not 
harm him. 

With the noble mother, with the humble fireside, where all 
sweet and wholesome virtues flourished, no iron of poverty could 
enter his soul. He had too free, too varied, and too active a 
childhood to be conscious of any humiliating or depressing in- 
fluences in its atmosphere. Those Ohio woods and streams and 
fields were his kindly, intimate teachers. With what vigorous 
health, with what bounding life, they filled the blue-eyed, fair- 
haired child who spent so much of his days amongst them ! 
What pure, noble, life-long lessons they taught him, which he 
could never have found, even in the books he was afterward to 
love with a perfect love ! 

James was the youngest, the pet of the household ; he 
was a bright, sturdy, resolute boy, much bent on having his 
own way — a fact which gave the doting mother a good deal 
of anxiety. He appears to have been always larger than his 
years warranted. There was certainly a touch of precocity 
in his learning to read by the time he was three. Brave, res- 
olute, truthful, he must early have exhibited qualities which 
gave promise of a rare and earnest character. The mother, at 
her work, — she must have had scant leisure with her young 
household and her small farm — read poems, and told Bible- 
stories to her children, all of which James greatly enjoyed. 

He borrowed, like Abraham Lincoln, all the books, far and 
near, and devoured them. During the winters he attended the 
district school. When he was about eleven, the Orange boys 
formed a lyceum, and James eagerly joined the debating clubs, 
and these, no doubt, roused and stimulated his mind in various 
directions. 



James AbraDi Garfield. 2>47 

All this time he was doing a farm boy's work. He was 
about fifteen when the great ambition of the Garfield household 
was gratified, and they exchanged their log cabin for a wood 
house of four rooms. The orchard of a hundred trees, which 
the father had planted, stood, by this time, green and ample, 
about the small home. Under the shade of the apple-trees 
James had spent many of the happiest hours of his boyhood. 
He had watched with immense interest the building of the new 
house, and he now made up his mind to become a carpenter. 
He followed the business for about two years, with intervals of 
farm work. 

At this period he had frequent moods of discouragement, 
such as often come with adolescence. It must have been a 
peculiarly trying time to him ; he was restless and pursued by 
vague longings and ambitions ; he did not know himself, nor to 
what goal his aptitudes pointed. Everything was confused and 
tentative in his thoughts and his work ; he must have had many 
gloomy hours. Nobody understood him well enough to advise 
or help him. His restlessness and his young imagination, which 
had been fed by tales of the sea, aroused strong desires for a 
sailor's life. While he was in this mood, he went to work for a 
while in his uncle's woodland, near Newburg. He saw Lake 
Erie, and the sight of the blue water suggested a trip on the 
lake boats as the beginning of a seafaring career. 

When the wood chopping was done he attempted to find a 
place as " deck-hand or common sailor " on some ship, but his 
first application was so discouraging that he did not repeat it. 
A position, humbler if possible than the one he had sought, 
now opened to him. His uncle owned a canal-boat which car- 
ried cargoes of coal from the mines to Cleveland. The nephew 
" engaged to drive the horses which drew the boat along the 
Ohio canal." 

He had now reached the nadir of his career. The new 



34^ Our Presidents. 



work was outdoors, and in this respect suited his restless mind 
and body ; but the labor brought with it associations which his 
careful mother would have disapproved. 

He followed the canal work for about six months, and then 
the fever and ague clutched him. One day, weak and dizzied, 
he fell into the canal. That fall was a fortunate one for James 
Garfield, though he barely escaped drowning ; he was now too 
ill to continue at his post, and Avith much difficulty he managed 
to reach home. A long and dangerous illness followed, but his 
fine constitution brought him safely through at last. 

In the long leisures of convalescence new and serious thoughts 
awoke in his soul. They ripened at last into an invincible reso- 
lution to make something of himself, to set about getting an 
education. 

The obstacles in his way would have seemed insurmounta- 
ble to most boys. But the one who lay with his wide-awake 
brain under that low roof, and made up his mind what he was 
going to do, was now to prove what splendid reserves of pluck 
he had in him. 

In one shape and another, ways opened. A kind clergyman 
in the neighborhood encouraged James's purpose and gave him 
valuable advice ; his mother, too, sympathized warmly with his 
new plans. 

As soon as he recovered he set about his studies ; he had 
to do this by himself, as the household finances did not admit 
of his attending school. But he held to his purpose unflinch- 
ingly. It was certain during this time that, when he was not at 
work, he was at his studies. 

Such a determination, pursued unflinchingly in the face 
of all difficulties, is certain, in the long run, to win. The story 
of the struggle, inspiring as it is, is too long for this sketch. 
The fight was continuous and hard enough to wear out any but 
a will of very stern fiber. 



James Abrain Garjiehi. 349 



James Garfield had made a long climb upward when, in 
1849, he entered the academy at Chester ; he remained there, 
more or less, for two years. 

At eighteen the boy who had worked on the farm and tried 
carpentering and driving on the tow-path, was teaching school 
in his native town. 

Later he went to Hiram College, which had been recently 
founded by the Church of the Disciples. Mrs. Garfield had 
joined this simple and devout community, and her youngest son, 
whose religious convictions were always deep and vital, had 
become a member of the same body. At Hiram College young 
Garfield passed three years. They must have been happy ones 
to him, with their congenial associations, their strenuous study, 
their various toils to meet the expenses of his education, and 
their economies that were ennobled by a lofty purpose. 

It was in 1854 that the uncle whose wood he had chopped, 
and whose canal-boat horses he had driven, loaned his promis- 
ing young nephew five hundred dollars to complete his studies 
in an Eastern college. 

So James Garfield had reached the acme of his ambition, and 
this was why the autumn of 1854 had opened so radiantly for 
him. 

But here he must speak for himself in the words which he 
wrote at this time to a friend, little dreaming that the world 
would ever dwell on them with curious interest. 

" I am the son of Disciple parents ; am one myself, and have 
had but little acquaintance with people of other views ; and 
having always lived in the West, I think it will make me more 
liberal, both in my religious and general views and sentiments, 
to go into a new circle where I shall be under new influence. 
These considerations led me to conclude to go to some New 
England college. I, therefore, wrote to the Presidents of Brown 
University, Yale and Williams, setting forth the amount of 



35^ Our Presidents. 



study I had done, and asking how long it would take me to 
finish their course. 

" These answers are now before me. All tell me I can 
graduate in two years. They are all brief business notes, but 
President Hopkins concludes with these words : ' If you come 
here we shall be glad to do what we can for you.' Other things 
being so nearly equal, this sentence, which appears to be a 
friendly grasp of the hand, has settled the question for me. I 
shall start for Williams next week." 

He entered the junior class ; he was now in the full glow of 
young manhood's strength and vigor. The large-molded head, 
the strong, eager face, with the blue eyes and brown hair, sug- 
gested his Saxon rather than his Huguenot ancestry. With his 
spirited head on his stalwart shoulders and his tall figure, he 
must have seemed a kind of young Titan among his slighter 
fellows. 

The student who had made such struggles and sacrifices to 
get to college, would not be likely, once there, to waste his 
opportunities. It is enough to say that young Garfield went at 
his work with the delight and thoroughness of the born scholar — 
that his range of reading was as broad as his time and class- 
work allowed. But he was not solely a student. With his 
abounding vitality, with his genial, cordial nature, he could not 
fail to enjoy the social life of the college. He had here, as 
everywhere, a singular power of attracting friends ; he indulged 
sparingly in the sports of the college. Those powerful muscles 
had been trained in a sterner school ; his stringent integrity, 
his openness and manliness of character, could not fail to make 
their mark here, as they did in all the circumstances of his 
varied life. 

Young Garfield seems to have absorbed all the best and 
finest influences in the intellectual and moral atmosphere about 
him ; his whole being was roused and stimulated by the thought 



James Abram Garfield. 3 5 ^ 



and example of the President of the college whose few words 
had brought him to Williams, and for whom he always cher- 
ished a deep admiration and affection. 

Those were precious days of expanding thought and ripen- 
ing character. The student, however, little dreamed of the grand 
arena for which they were preparing him. 

At twenty-four James Garfield graduated and returned to 
Ohio. He was now fairly equipped and eager for the race. 
In a short time he was offered and accepted a professorship in 
Hiram College. A year later he was its President. 

In 1858 he married Miss Lucretia Rudolph of Hiram. They 
had been students in the old days at Chester. The young lady 
came also of a stanch New England race, and had been brought 
up in a home where all sterling virtues flourished. James Gar- 
field's marriage was, in all the best meaning of the words, " a 
wise one." The young wife brought, with her sweet face and 
her womanly tenderness, a rare intellectual sympathy and com- 
panionship to their wedded life ; while her good judgment, her 
simplicity of taste and character, must have been peculiarly 
wholesome and restful to a man of her husband's ardent, im- 
pulsive temperament. 

With his religious training and convictions he had at one 
time almost determined to study for the ministry, but soon after 
his marriage he resolved to prepare himself for the law, and 
with characteristic energy set about his legal studies ; he pursued 
these under great drawbacks, for the duties of President of 
Hiram College were varied and exacting. It was fortunate that 
his early rugged life had given him such robust health, or it 
would not have borne the double strain of those years. While 
he was studying law, the instincts of the statesman became 
interested in the political questions which now began to come 
to the political foreground. On the subject of slavery James 
Garfield, like Abraham Lincoln, took liis stand early and kept 



352 Our Presidents. 



it unflinchingly. He was, from first to last, its resolute, out- 
spoken, consistent foe. 

In 1859 he was, to his own great surprise, elected to the State 
Senate of Ohio. This was no small honor to a young man who 
had left his "alma mater" only five years before. He now 
entered upon public life, but he had no controlling ambition to 
remain in it. He had the instincts and tastes of the born 
scholar, and he did not even resign his position at Hiram. 

But two years later the hour struck which summoned James 
Garfield to the new work and the larger place. It was his fate 
never to return to private life. The President of Hiram College, 
the recent law student, the young Ohio State Senator, knew 
nothing of military affairs. But the events of 1861 stirred his 
whole soul with a passion of patriotism. He felt, as every loyal 
man in the North did, that he had a country to live or to die 
for. With his habit of putting his heart and soul into every- 
thing he did, he now set about assisting the Governor " in 
organizing the Ohio volunteers and in raising supplies for the 
army. " 

The whole business was novel and full of harassing per- 
plexities to all who undertook it. Garfield rendered inestimable 
service at this trying time. He did everything in the spirit of 
a true patriot. While many were intent on reward and office, 
he did not solicit either ; but in a little while both came to him. 

A regiment of enthusiastic volunteers, composed largely of 
his college pupils, was organized at Hiram. The students were 
eager that their President should be appointed Colonel of the 
regiment. He felt himself unequal to the grand responsibilities 
which the command involved ; but it was at last forced upon 
him, and Colonel Garfield marched with his regiment, the Forty- 
second Ohio. 

Colonel Garfield won his first military laurels, as everybody 
knows, in the Big Sandy campaign. The rebels had swarmed 



James Abram Garfield. 353 



into Kentucky, resolved to carry the reluctant border State into 
secession. Marshall, with his five thousand troops, was in the 
Big Sandy valley when Garfield went with his raw young 
soldiers to meet him. 

After much marching and skirmishing the battle took place 
at Prestonburg. It must have been a trying moment to the 
new Colonel, who had never himself been in an engagement, 
when he led his greatly inferior numbers to their first encounter 
with the enemy. It closed at last in a victory for the Unionists. 
Marshall's troops, as fresh as Garfield's, " were put to rout, and 
during the night beat a hasty retreat into Southwestern Vir- 
ginia." The Big Sandy victory was doubly important because 
it was won against an enemy so superior in numbers, and at a 
time when the Union armies had met with serious reverses. 

The figure of the young Colonel, as he tossed his coat into 
a tree and shouted back to his cavalry, whom he had first 
ordered to charge, "Give 'em 'Hail Columbia,' boys," forms 
the most striking and heroic picture of this campaign. 

The remainder of Garfield's brief military career is in keep- 
ing with its brilliant opening chapter. He was promoted to the 
rank of Brigadier-general by the President, whose anxious and 
long vexed soul was rejoiced by tidings of victory from the 
West. The remainder of the year was full of varied military 
service for Garfield. But during that time he was in no battles. 
He was busy at the work of " reconstructing railroad bridges 
and re-establishing lines of railway communication for the army, 
beside serving on important court-martials." Later, he was at 
the outposts with his brigade during the long siege of Corinth ; 
but the hardships he underwent brought back his old foe, mala- 
ria, and he was forced to return to his home at Hiram, where he 
lay prostrated by illness. 

As soon as his recovery permitted he repaired once more 
to the field. He now joined the army of the Cumberland, as 
23 



354 Ow Presidents. 



General Rosecrans' chief-of-staff . It was at that time a position 
full of trials and heavy responsibilities. Garfield went through the 
battle of Chickamauga. It proved a lost one for his cause. Yet 
out of its very defeat he plucked fresh laurels for his own wear- 
ing. His perilous ride back to the scene of action after the 
reverse and flight on that terrible day, lifts him into the light of 
poetry and heroism. That ride, just at the critical moment, 
saved General Thomas's army, and as the night darkened over 
the field the enemy's columns retreated before the Union bat- 
teries. 

That day's work was General Garfield's last on the field of 
battle. He earned there the title of Major-general. But his 
country needed other service from him now. He had been 
elected to Congress by his native State. 

General Garfield was only thirty-two years old, and had been 
for two years and four months in the army, when he, in ac- 
cordance with President Lincoln's strong desire, — he himself 
appears to have been inclined to remain in the field, — took his 
seat in the House of Representatives. 

General Garfield had now entered the lists in which he was 
to do the longest and most important work of his life, for he was 
in Congress seventeen years. He had proved that he had in him 
the stuff of a born commander of soldiers ; but whether he 
would "have achieved a great military fame had he remained 
longer in the army must now be always an unsolved problem ; 
his career in the field was cut short suddenly and absolutely, as 
though an enemy's bullet had closed it. 

It can at least be said for James Garfield, that whenever 
his powers were put to the test, they made their mark. There 
is no doubt that he would have won high distinction at the bar 
had not his public services supervened ; his legal studies, how- 
ever, proved of immense value to him in his Congressional 
labors. 



James Abram Garfield. 355 

Abraham Lincoln was shrewd at reading the characters and 
aptitudes of men. His estimate of young Garfield was amply 
justified by the latter's course in the national legislature. 

The Ohio member rendered his country splendid service 
during a period that was full of new and untried issues for 
the government. During more than a decade and a half, he 
served his country with all the forces of his intellect, and 
with all the devotion of his heart. As a debater he soon took 
front rank among his colleagues. As one critical measure after 
another came up for discussion in those trying years of the 
nation's history, Garfield treated it in his masterly, exhaustive 
manner, and with all the force of his strong, aspiring instincts 
and convictions ; he made many brilliant and effective speeches ; 
he had a wonderfully happy way of pouring, by a few terse, 
rapid sentences, or a simple, pointed anecdote, a flood of light 
upon some confused or doubtful matter. Of course he was often 
in the thick of political controversy, and had to give and take 
heavy blows ; but he was a generous antagonist, and he was 
never the mere politician : he always, in aim at least, was the 
Christian statesman. 

The range and breadth of his Congressional labors cannot 
even be recounted here. They deal with an immense variety 
of interests. Some of these were the most important and far- 
reaching which could engage the thoughts and appeal to the 
heart of a statesman ; and some were only of narrow and local 
importance. 

But in one way or another they illustrate the grasp and 
versatility of the mind that could deal with such various and 
widely contrasted matters. 

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that his public 
success, great as that unquestionably i)roved, was the result 
merely of native gifts. He was all his life, what he had been at 
Chester Academy and Williams College, a constant, untiring 



356 Our Presidents. 



scholar : he snatched moments, odds and ends of time, out of 
his crowded life, for study : he had, it is true, a good deal of 
Macaulay's knack of getting at the pith of a page, the core of a 
book, by a rapid glance at its pages. 

The man's nature, like his physique, was molded in large, 
generous lines. He had a glowing, abounding vitality. His 
temperament was invincibly hopeful and optimistic ; he had un- 
bounding faith in men and women; he believed in their noblest 
possibilities, and appealed directly to those because he had faith 
in the God who made them. He must have had a singularly 
lovable personality. It attracted and held throughout his life 
people of widely opposite characters and tastes. If he some- 
times made mistakes in judging of others, that only proves 
he was human. But in the main, his opinions of his fellow- 
men, his political prescience, and his moral instincts, have been 
justified by events. 

General Garfield probably thought he had attained the sum- 
mit of his political ambitions when Ohio elected him to the 
United States Senate ; but there was a greater honor in reserve 
for him. In 1880 the Republican convention at Chicago, after 
its famous week of tumultuous passions and fierce controversies, 
which held the whole country in suspense, nominated James 
A. Garfield for the presidency. 

The nomination was entirely unsought by him. He was a 
delegate to the convention, and had worked heart and soul 
for the nomination of his friend, John Sherman of Ohio, and 
he was probably as much astonished at the result as any of his 
colleagues in the convention. 

The campaign which followed went the way of all campaigns. 
It was full of tumult and excitement, of noisy stump-speaking 
and of cruel detraction, but the end came at last, and the long 
political storm subsided, when James Abram Garfield was, in 
November, 1880, elected to the presidency. 



James Ahram Garfield. 357 

He who had chopped the farm-wood and steered the canal- 
boat, and who probably would have been less a man had he not 
done both in his boyhood, went from his quiet home at Men- 
tor, Ohio, to take his place at the nation's helm. He was in the 
prime of his years, so young, indeed, that many a man who has 
won lasting fame, has, at Garfield's age, had all his life-work 
before him. 

The inauguration took place amid the usual vast crowds, and 
with much heartfelt enthusiasm, which the character and his- 
tory of the President inspired. 

The inauguration had, however, some fresh features lent to 
it by the personality of its central figure. When James Gar- 
field had taken the oath of office, he turned suddenly and kissed 
his old mother and the wife of his youth who stood by her side. 
The most captious spectator felt what was in his heart and 
thought at that moment, and forgot to criticise. 

But, despite his brave, hopeful temperament, the new Presi- 
dent did not underrate the difficulties and vast responsibilities 
before him. He frankly stated that, had he consulted his own 
likings, he would have better enjoyed being a " free-lance " in 
Congress. 

The new occupant of the White House usually finds his first 
weeks there the most wearisome and harassing of his adminis- 
tration. Crowds of hungry office-seekers consume his time 
and tax his strength, until he must ask his vexed soul whether 
this honor and high place are worth their price. 

Garfield's experience, during the spring and early summer, 
was no exception to the rule. There is something pathetic in 
the exclamation wrung one day from his disgust and weariness : 
" I have been dealing all these years with ideas, and here I am 
dealing only with persons." 

At this time his v/ife had an alarming illness which " almost 
unnerved " her husband. 



158 Our Presidents. 



Mrs. Garfield's character was drawn on a certain reserve, and 
the position of mistress of the White House, with all the pomp 
and display it involved, had few attractions for her quiet tastes. 
Her own fireside, where she could hear her children's happy 
voices and share her husband's intellectual life, with which she 
had so fine a sympathy, was to her the dearest spot on earth. 
But she had accepted the duties and responsibilities of her new 
position with the rare good judgment which made her husband 
affirm " that in all his ofticial life he had never suffered from 
any word or act of his wife's." 

The morning of July 2, 1881, dawned upon a peaceful and 
prosperous nation. It found the President ready to lay aside 
his armor and take a short midsummer rest. That Saturday 
morning must have seemed, in a large sense, the crown and 
completion of his life. No other morning amid all his days of 
achievement and success could have held for him all that this 
one did. With his sensitive imagination he must have felt what 
the hour symbolized for him, as, standing on the White House 
piazza, he looked on its wide bloom and dazzling loveliness. 
He was on the eve of leaving for a few days the scene of his 
great triumphs and of his harassing labors and anxieties. 

It was said of him afterward, when all memories of this 
hour were to have an unutterable significance, that he was 
"joyously, almost boyishly happy." 

The President was on the point of joining his wife, who had 
been sent to the quiet and cool air of Long Branch. He was 
to spend the national holiday at Williams College, amid old, 
delightful memories and associations. He could not have 
failed to remember, with no ignoble pride, that if he went to 
his " alma mater " the poorest of her students, he was going 
back to her now the greatest, the most honored. 

Beyond the visit to Williams spread the prospect of a restful 
trip with his convalescent wife on the coast, and among the 



James Abram Garfield. 359 

mountains of northern New England. All this must have been 
in the heart and thoughts of the man who drove from the 
White House to the railroad station in the bright air of that 
July morning. 

Everybody knows what he was to meet there, and how it 
came to him ! 

Before noon the nation was stunned with tidings of the 
tragedy, and its shadow had darkened all the land that was 
getting ready for its holiday. 

The bullet did its work surely, but not swiftly, as In Abra- 
ham Lincoln's case. Long months followed of anguish for the 
sufferer, of hope and fear for the country. The wound, in the 
end, proved mortal, but its progress was hidden and baffled the 
skill of the physicians. The summer waned, while the shadow 
of a great grief deepened upon the land. For it seemed as 
though man was never so loved as this man, never life so 
longed for, as that one which slowly, amid fluctuations of 
strength and weakness, was languishing to the end under the 
White House roof, amid the summer heats of Washington. 

The President bore his long anguish with chj^racteristic 
patience and heroism. He had everything that man could 
have to live for, but the faith of his life did not fail him when 
all earthly glories and honors grew dim and small. As he lay 
stricken and helpless, his thoughts must often have gone back 
to his struggling boyhood, to his studious, aspiring youth, to his 
manhood, crowned with such glory as he had never dreamed of 
in his most ambitious hour. No doubt, he often cherished high 
hope of recovering, and of noble work that lay before him ; but 
there must have been times when, his prescience made clearer 
by wasting strength and wearing pain, he turned from the world 
and all that it held for him, away from the friendships that had 
been so dear, and the household loves that had made the sweet- 
ness of his life, and gazed into the stillness and darkness of the 



)6o Our Presidents. 



grave. But the light of eternal hope shone there for him, and 
in the stillness where human voices must die away he heard 
the Voice of God. 

The message which summoned Mrs. Garfield to Washington 
on that fateful Saturday, when, recovering from her long illness, 
she was awaiting her husband at Long Branch, did not reveal 
the full extent of his danger. 

Through the agonizing weeks in which she watched her hus- 
band droop slowly to his death, she bore herself with a quiet 
fortitude worthy of a Roman matron, with the noble faith of a 
Christian woman. No act, no word wrung from her weakness 
and grief, ever misbecame that long period of unutterable trial. 
Coming up herself almost from the Valley of the Shadow of 
Death, she returned to find, on the White House threshold, 
that Shadow awaiting her, and to dwell in it through endless days 
and nights until the summer had waxed and vv^aned. When 
she crossed the threshold for the last time, she accompanied y 
the worn, prostrate figure, now all that was left of the spirited 
head, the noble face, the manly presence, of her husband. 

For in James Garfield's last days his old boyhood's long- 
ings for the sea had returned. They carried him down to the 
Long Branch shore. But it was too late for the cool, salt air to 
work its healing on him ; perhaps it would have been from the 
moment the bullet went home. 

But the dying man had time to look again upon the wide 
shore and the blue, tumbling sea, and then all other voices 
grew silent to James Garfield, except that Voice which called 
him into the eternal morning, September 19, 1881. 




'^"^ ^'if ILl-'JaAU'^ j£*i'iM^'^i"^ -•"' 



CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR. 

In September, 1881, amid the mourning of the nation, 
Chester Alan Arthur became President of the United States. 
The land was darkened with the shadow of the tragedy which 
had placed him at the nation's helm, and any joyful inaugural 
ceremonies would have been singularly out of place. The 
voices which congratulated him were forced to be brief and 
hushed as those which speak in the chamber of death. 

• Mr. Arthur took his oath of office under circumstances 
which could not fail to be trying to a man of sensitive feelings ; 
he w^s well aware that the nation had accepted him perfunc- 
torily as its Chief Magistrate, that he was regarded with doubt 
and coldness by the majority of his own party ; he must have 
had a keen consciousness that his presence at the White House 
could not fail to be a bitter reminder of one so greatly loved 
and mourned, who had left it vacant. 

It should always be borne in mind that our twenty-first 
President was acutely conscious of the deep cloud under which 
he entered upon his office. It was inevitable that he should be ' 
the object of more adverse criticism than usually falls to the 
lot of an incoming President. 

The precedents in this case were not encouraging. The 
three vice-Presidents who had succeeded to the executive chair 
on the death of the people's first choice, had made on the 
whole a disappointing record in presidential history. This fact 
was sure to be recalled to the disadvantage of the present one. 

The character, the personal and political aims of the man 
who had succeeded James Garfield, became suddenly a matter 



362 Our Presidents. 



of immense anxiety to the nation. It was evident that the time 
had now come which was thoroughly to test his quality. 

Chester Alan Arthur became President just before he 
reached his fifty-first birthday ; he was born in Fairfield, 
Franklin County, Vermont, October 27, 1830. He was the 
son of a Baptist clergyman, who, in his early youth, emigrated 
from Ireland, and who was a man of strong feelings, decided 
theological convictions, and ardent devotion to his studies ; he 
had various country pastorates, and with his large family and 
slender clerical income, must have found it a struggle to make 
both ends meet. Chester was the eldest son, and rigid econo- 
mies were, of course, the habit of the household. But the 
clergyman was bent on giving his son an education which would 
equip him for the battle of life. Chester's boyhood had the 
great advantage of his father's library and his father's training. 

He came up a bright, impulsive, active boy, and early 
showed his strong, domestic attachments and his frolicsome 
temper. When it came in his way to earn a little money, he 
did farm work, or any other odd job to which a strong, vigorous 
boy could set his hand ; he must have inherited the parental 
aptitudes for study, for at fourteen he entered Union College ; 
his social disposition and his youth interfered a good deal with 
his love of study ; he was foremost in sports and adventures, 
especially if they had a spice of danger ; he enjoyed to the full 
all the class-games and fun, and liked torch-light processions, 
and to take his part in parades, all of which only goes to prove 
that he was a thorough, happy, wide-awake boy. 

He graduated with an average record, and at once set about 
school-teaching, which he tried for two years in his native state. 
Then, having saved a few hundred dollars, he went to New 
York, where he promptly set about preparing himself for admis- 
sion to the bar. At this time he had large dreams of estab- 
lishing himself at the West and winning fame and fortune in 



Chester Alan Arthur. 363 

his profession ; he at last made a trip there with a young friend 
and brother-lawyer, Plenry S. Gardner ; but once on the 
ground, there appeared no prospect of immediate and striking 
success. The two, probably a little sadder and wiser, but by 
no means disheartened, returned to New York. They estab- 
lished a partnership and fortune smiled on them. The young 
firm entered on an extensive and lucrative practice. For the 
next ten years young Arthur devoted himself to his profession, 
and he reaped large rewards of distinction and fortune. The 
first partnership lasted for four years ; then Arthur practiced 
alone for five, and afterward formed a brief second partnership. 
He became early interested in anti-slavery measures ; his gener- 
ous young soul was fired with indignation at the recital of Wil- 
liam Lloyd Garrison's persecutions in Boston. Chester Arthur 
was thrown much among abolitionist influences, and became a 
stanch defender of the colored people ; his arguments in the 
famous Lemon slave case won him much honor, and he suc- 
ceeded in securing the right of the colored race to ride in the 
New York street cars. 

No doubt his anti-slavery sympathies gave a complexion to 
his political career. 

Ii''^ ^^55 young Arthur became Judge-advocate of a brigade 
of New York militia ; he was afterward appointed chief engi- 
neer on Governor Morgan's staff, and two years later he was 
Inspector-general of the State. These were high honors for a 
young man who had not yet reached his thirtieth birthday. 

When the war broke out, and the great problem of supplies 
for the New York troops had to be solved, Arthur was appointed 
Brigadier-General ; he served in this department for six months. 
When Governor Morgan was followed by Governor Seymour, 
Arthur's management won the highest praise from the officer 
who took his place. 

In 1871 General Arthur, who had returned to his lucrative 



364 Our Presidents. 



law practice, was appointed by President Grant, Collector of 
the Port of New York — he occupied this high office for four 
years : he was nominated and re-appointed the same day. The 
matter was not referred to a committee. This was a marked 
courtesy. It had hitherto been shown only to Senators. 

President Hayes at last resolved to remove Arthur from his 
post, but offered him a foreign appointment. The Collector 
declined to resign. No charge could be brought against him, 
except " his active participation in politics : " he was known to 
be in strong sympathy with the Grant or " third term wing of 
the Republican party." 

But the closest investigations failed to show a flaw in the Col- 
lector's integrity, and the President asserted his entire belief in 
General Arthur's official honesty. The latter had expressed the 
feeling of his life, when, long before, he said one day to a friend: 
" If I had misappropriated five cents, and on walking down 
town saw two men talking on the corner together, I should 
imagine they were talking of my dishonesty, and the thought 
would drive me mad." 

General Arthur was a delegate at large to the Republican 
National Convention which met in Chicago in 1880. He 
ardently supported General Grant's nomination; but when, after 
the long, fierce controversy, the choice was declared for Gar- 
field, Arthur was, by acclamation, nominated for the vice-presi- 
dency. 

It is impossible to enter here on the strife over the New York 
appointments which followed the election of Garfield and Ar- 
thur, and which shook the Republican party to its center. 

On July 2, 1 881, the great tragedy occurred which hushed 
the strife of parties. 

As the prospect of the President's recovery grew fainter, 
men's thoughts turned to Chester A. Arthur. It was well 
known to which side his political traditions and friendships had 



Chester Alan Arthur. 3^5 

inclined him in the late contests. The nation remembered 
with dismay its last experience of a Vice-President who had 
become Chief Magistrate, and was, as we have seen, filled with 
anxious forebodings. 

But during those trying months while the President lay fluc- 
tuating between life and death, Chester Arthur carried himself 
with a dignity and propriety which afforded no grounds for criti- 
cism. " He refrained from all participation in public affairs 
and the controversies of the time, only expressing on fitting occa- 
sions his own sincere share in the common grief and anxiety." 

This is a scant outline of the history of the man who on 
September 19, 1881, became President of the United States. 

From that time the partisan was lost in the President. 
His inaugural surprised the people by its temperate, reassur- 
ing tone, and he soon proved his determination to administer 
his high office in the interests of no faction. By his course he 
estranged some of his political friends, but " he had the noble 
consciousness that he had largely succeeded in healing the dis- 
sensions of his party." 

Such an administration could not, of course, be a brilliant, 
aggressive one. But this latter would have been the worst 
possible for the nation. The country needed a period of calm, 
of assured quiet, to recover from the long strain and excitement 
through which it had passed. 

To President Arthur's great honor it must be said that, dur- 
ing his three and a half years of administration, he gave his 
country what she most needed. Had he displayed a different 
temper; had he allowed his personal ambitions, his private par- 
tialities or resentments to dominate him ; had he been bent on 
establishing his own policy and pursuing a strong, independent 
course, he might have plunged the nation, in its sensitive and 
excited mood, into political discussions and contests out of which 
vast evil would have flowed. 



366 Our Presidents. 



But the crisis brought out the nobler qualities of the man 
and the patriot : he himself never forgot that he was not the first 
choice of the nation, though he in the end earned its respect 
and its admiration. For the first time a Vice-President, called 
to the higher office, closed his administration amid the favor 
and confidence of the party which had elected him. 

President Arthur's person was tall and well proportioned ; he 
had a handsome, intelligent face and a distinguished presence. 
In character he was affable and genial ; his affections were 
strong, and he was much beloved by his friends. 

All his official intercourse was marked by unvarying court- 
esy, and he was the dignified and gracious master of the White 
House. 

When Chester Arthur was about twenty-two he had mar- 
ried the daughter of Commodore Herndon, whose bravery was 
attested by the gold medal which Congress awarded his widow. 

Mrs. Arthur died in 1879, and her husband never married 
again. 

When President Arthur retired from the Presidency, and 
returned to New York, he was still in the prime of his life, 
and there was every reason to suppose that many years lay 
before him. But in the following year he had a severe attack 
of illness, and though he rallied for awhile, his recovery proved 
only transient. 

His death was a surprise to his friends and to the country he 
had served so well. He died in New York City November 18 
1886. 




^^_^ ^^. 



•«** 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 

In the autumn of 1855 ^ young man entered a Buffalo law 
firm as clerk and copyist. He received tlie very small salary 
of four dollars a week for his services ; his name was Grover 
Cleveland. 

The young law student who was now making a brave strug- 
gle for admission to the bar, had been born in Caldwell, New 
Jersey, March 18, 1837. His father was a Presbyterian clergy- 
man whose English ancestry had settled in New England in its 
early colonial history. The mother was the daughter of a Balti- 
more merchant who came of Irish stock. Grover was named 
after the clergyman who had preceded his father at Caldwell. 

When the boy was four the pastorate was changed for 
another at Fayetteville. Here he went to the academy and 
laid the foundations for his education. Afterward the family 
removed to Clinton, Oneida County, New York, where he re- 
sumed his studies at another academy. 

With his resolute, sturdy, self-helpful nature, the Presby- 
terian parson's son was certain to set himself early and square 
at the battle of life, and it was almost a matter of course, 
that the household means of a country minister would be very 
limited. Grover, with his sensible, practical temperament, 
must have looked the facts early and courageously in the face, 
and resolved on having a hard battle with fate. At seventeen 
he was in New York City as clerk and assistant teacher in an 
institution for the blind. His elder brother, like the father, a 
Presbyterian clergyman, was teaching at the same place, and 
had, no doubt, secured a position for the younger. 

He did not occupy it long. In 1855 he resolved to go to 



368 Our Presidents. 



the West and make his place there ; he went as far as Buffalo 
where his destiny was to keep him ; he assisted an uncle in 
some literary work, and then entered a law office and set about 
studying Blackstone. 

In 1859 Grover Cleveland was admitted to the bar ; he 
remained for three years with the firm with which he had begun 
his legal studies. Afterward he became a member of several 
other law firms in the city. 

The young Buffalo lawyer had the strong fiber, the power of 
persistent work, the resolute purpose, which is certain to suc- 
ceed in life. During the years which followed his admission to 
the bar, Grover Cleveland " had obtained high rank as a lawyer : 
he was noted for the simplicity and directness of his logic and 
expression and thorough mastery of his cases." 

By this time the father had died, and the widow and her 
family were left in those straitened circumstances which are so 
often the fate of clergymen's families. 

Fortunately for this one there was a brother with a strong 
brain and a generous hand to come to its aid. 

In the autumn of 1881 Grover Cleveland was nominated for 
Mayor of Buffalo. He characteristically expressed his opinion 
at this time '* that the affairs of the city should be conducted 
as far as possible on the same principles as a good business 
man manages his private concerns." 

After his election he became known as the " Veto Mayor. " It 
was certainly to his honor that he " used his prerogative fear- 
lessly in checking useless and extravagant expenditures." The 
appropriations for the celebration of the Fourth of July were 
curtailed that the money might be more wisely expended on 
Decoration Day. 

In the Democratic convention at Syracuse the Buffalo 
Mayor was nominated for Governor of New York, and duly 
elected. 



Grover Cleveland. 369 



In this high position he promptly showed his dislike of mere 
ofificial parade and ceremony. He avowed, in his clear, terse 
style, his purpose "to serve the people faithfully and well." 

He afforded an unprecedented spectacle in Albany when he 
went on foot through its streets to the capitol, accompanied 
only by a friend, to take his oath of office. As far as possible, 
he dispensed with ofificial forms and ceremonials. " The Gov- 
ernor of the State lived simply, keeping no carriage, and walk- 
ing daily from his house to the scene of his duties." 

The "Veto Mayor" proved an "honest Governor." His 
opponents might disapprove of many of his political measures, 
but nobody questioned his integrity. 

In 1884 the Democratic National Convention at Chicago 
nominated Grover Cleveland for twenty-second President of the 
United States. The canvass which followed was one of great 
rancor and bitterness. The Republican party, which had car- 
ried the country through the grief and glory of the most mo- 
mentous quarter of a century in its history, was shaken by dis- 
sensions and antipathies, partly political and partly personal. 
It was also weakened by the separation and opposition of some 
of its most prominent and trusted leaders. In November 
Grover Cleveland was elected President of the United States. 

His administration has been marked by those forcible and 
independent qualities which distinguished him as Mayor of 
Buffalo and Governor of New York. It is characteristic of 
such a man that he should exercise his veto power more 
frequently than most of his predecessors. 

The President is now in the prime of his years. He is a 
man of large, rather massive build, with a strong, resolute, 
intelligent face, and with a quiet, simple directness of speech 
and manner. 

His sister, Miss Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, a lady of liter- 
ary tastes, whose writings give evidence of mental grasp and 



370 Our Presidents. 



earnest thought, became, after her brother's inaugural the mis- 
tress of the White House. 

On June 2, 1886, the President was married to Miss Frances 
Folsom. The young lady was the daughter of his intimate 
friend and former law partner, and must have had throughout 
her girlhood pleasant and fireside associations with one who, 
after her father's sudden death, became the intimate, loyal 
friend of his family. 

The young wife who now presides at the White House is 
said to have many attractions of person and manner. She has 
lent the charm of sweet and graceful young womanhood to all 
the dignities and responsibilities of the high position which she 
occupies. 

In June, 1888, the Democratic National Convention assem- 
bled at St. Louis and re-nominated President Cleveland to a 
second term of office. 

The main issue between the two political parties was the 
ever-recurring one of the tariff. The quiet and good temper 
with which the campaign has been conducted forms an agree- 
able contrast to the excitement and acrimony of the preceding 
one. 



BENJAMIN HARRISON. 

The inauguration of the next President of tlie United States 
will have one memorable feature. This cannot fail to touch 
the imagination and stir all the patriotic feeling of tlie man who 
will form the central figure in that impressive ceremonial. For 
the oath of office which he takes Avill close a century of Presi- 
dents. It will mark the striking of that hour which opens a 
new one. 

Benjamin Harrison was born at North Bend, in the old Har- 
rison homestead, on August .?o, 1833. North Bend was the 
estate, or, as his sturdy old grandfather would have called it, 
the " farm " of the Harrisons, which lay on the Ohio River, not 
far from Cincinnati. 

Benjamin, as all the world knows, came of a stanch, patriotic 
breed. The Harrisons belonged to the old Virginia colonists, 
and a nimbus of the Revolution clung about the name. The boy 
at North Bend was christened after the great-grandfather who 
had set his name to the Declaration of Independence, and who 
served his country loyally in the colonial Congress during the 
Revolution, and as Governor of the young State of Virginia. 

The grandfather, under whose roof Benjamin first saw the 
light, became, a few years after the boy's birth, ninth President 
of the United States, so the Harrisons form the second instance 
within the century where the great office has been bestowed on 
members of the same family. 

Benjamin's father, John Scott Harrison, inherited the virtues 
of the race — its simplicity, its fidelity, its generosity. Love of 
riches, greed of fame, vaulting ambition, do not seem to have 



Our Presidents. 



been in the Harrison blood. The " Father of the Northwest " 
left the place which had afforded him such temptations of 
carving a colossal fortune out of the vast territories over which 
he was virtually dictator, with hands as stainless as Washing- 
ton's when he resigned his sword at the close of the war of the 
Revolution. 

The son, John Scott, loved his farm, " lying on the penin- 
sula between the Ohio and Miami rivers, just five miles below 
North Bend, and touching at one point the Indiana boundary 
line," better than he did all the honors and high places of the 
world. He was twice sent to Congress, but the political arena 
was not suited to his temperament. He returned to his family 
and his farm. He belonged there. He will always stand a 
quiet, unpretentious figure between his famous father and his 
distinguished son. 

Benjamin was the second boy of the household. His first 
school-house was a log-cabin, a short distance from his own 
very simple home. His father, who could leave his boys no 
fortune, was resolved they should be started with a good edu- 
cation. When the log-cabin went to pieces with age and the 
weather, private teachers were secured for the boys at home. 
Afterward Benjamin went for two years to an academy with 
the homely name of " Farmers' College," a few miles from Cin- 
cinnati. 

The boy was singularly fortunate in his home-life. It forms 
a simple, attractive picture, whenever we get a glimpse of it. 
The household atmosphere was sweet with all wholesome and 
sterling virtues. There was a tender mother, with a devout 
Christian character, at the head of the home, and she must have 
had a powerful molding influence upon the young lives grow- 
ing up about her. 

On Sundays, we read, Benjamin went regularly with his 
family to church at North Bend. His birthplace must have 



Benjamin Harrison. 373 



been a second home to him with the kindly, indulgent grand- 
mother, and the famous grandfather of whom he no doubt still 
has some childish memories, though he died at the White 
House before Benjamin had reached his eighth birthday. 

After two years at Farmers' College, the boy entered Miami 
University. He was, at this time, a slight-framed, rather under- 
sized youth, a little grave and serious, one imagines, for his 
years. He showed a decidedly studious bent and made the 
most of his advantages ; he was fond, too, we learn, of all the 
rude, outdoor games of the time and the place. 

Young Harrison made a fine record at Miami University and 
graduated at eighteen, " taking the fourth honors of his class." 

The boy reared on the Ohio farm had now to face life for 
himself. Things had gone from bad to worse with the estate 
which his father had inherited, and stripped of everything else, 
the owner was barely able, through the interposition of rela- 
tives, to retain possession of his farm. 

A little while before John Scott Harrison's father had been 
President of the United States ; he had given the strength of his 
youth, the prime of his manhood, to his country ; he had died 
in her service ; yet it appears never to have crossed the mind of 
his son that he had a claim on the country because of that life 
of unswerving patriotism and devotion. 

Benjamin Harrison certainly never thought of it when he 
came out of college and faced his fate and made up his mind to 
prepare for the bar. He entered a law-office in Cincinnati, and 
set about his studies with that earnestness which was to be the 
characteristic of his life. 

He was barely twenty, his studies were not yet completed 
when he took to wife Miss Caroline W. Scott, the daughter of 
the president of an academy, which '' stood in a town overlooked 
by Miami University." 

The bright, intelligent, attractive girl had won the heart of 



374 Our Presidents. 



the young student. That early marriage must have seemed a 
very imprudent step to their older and wiser friends. The 
young husband had no fortune, no assured means of support. 
But the union was to prove one of life-long sympathy and bless- 
edness. 

The lines would have appeared very hard ones to aught but 
youth and love and courage. Young Harrison completed his 
studies and resolved to enter the Indianapolis bar. It seemed a 
godsend that he had inherited a few hundred dollars from an 
aunt, but the sum was too small " to admit of his renting a 
house, or even an office." He had no influential friends in that 
young Western city, where the grandson of the President re- 
solved to make his brave struggle with fortune. 

The story is too long and varied for the limits of this 
sketch. The slight-framed, small-statured young lawyer, with 
the blue eyes and blonde complexion of his race, with his 
simple dress and his modest manner, soon became a member of 
the Indianapolis bar. But there was an unwavering purpose, a 
well-balanced brain, a manly integrity, behind the young face 
and the unassuming carriage. 

The struggle for the first years must have taxed every 
energy and strained every fiber. Alluding to that hard time 
long after it was over, Benjamin Harrison has said, " A five 
dollar bill was an event." 

Times brightened slowly but steadily. After the birth of 
the first son the young people went to housekeeping. The 
home — a one-story house, with three rooms — was the humblest 
imaginable. But beneath that lowly roof-tree dwelt the happi- 
ness which is often a stranger in palaces. 

In due time a law-partnership opened to young Harrison. 
His ability and integrity began to make their mark. In i860 
he was nominated by the Republican Convention for Reporter 
of the Supreme Court. He stumped the State, and his 



'Benjamin Harrison. 375 



speeches— particularly one at Rockville, where he was opposed 
to Mr. Hendricks— gained him a lasting reputation. Harrison 
was at this time elected to his first political office. 

From that time, the record of the Indianapolis lawyer is 
one of constantly ascending fortunes. He was not long in 
proving that he had chosen the profession for which nature had 
designed him. His arguments were marked by a clear, concise, 
vigorous style— a style which could on occasion rise into 
passionate indignation or into earnest elocpience. 

It was characteristic that he did not lose his temper in the 
heat and rush of argument, and that he treated the opposing 
counsel and the witnesses under his quiet, penetrating cross- 
examinations with unvarying courtesy. 

Benjamin Harrison was not twenty-eight years old when 
the Rebellion broke out. In that spring of 1861 he had won 
his place at the bar, and the future must have stretched ample 
and promising before him. In 1862, when the times were 
gloomiest, and the Northern cause had reached its nadir, Ben- 
jamin Harrison made up his mind that his country had a 
supreme claim on him, and resolved to go to the war. 

With characteristic promptness he set about drilling and 
recruiting a company. In a little while other companies joined 
it. Harrison was commissioned Colonel of the 70th Regiment 
Indiana Volunteers. He marched with his men to Bowlines 
Green. He remained with his regiment until it was mustered 
out at the close of the war. 

It is impossible to dwell at this time on the military career 
of Benjamin Harrison. It will form a chapter full of life, 
color, action, in an ampler history of the man. He was now to 
enter a new field, and his whole moral and mental make-up 
were to be subjected to new and stern tests. It must be suffi- 
cient to say here that, alike in the camp and on the battle-field 
he proved the soldier's stuff that was in him. At the battles of 



37^ Om Presidents. 



Resaca, of Kenesaw Mountain, of Peach Tree Creek, he ren- 
dered gallant service, and in long march, and weary bivouac, 
and desperate fight, showed himself the true soldier, the born 
commander. 

At Peach Tree Creek the young Colonel of the 70th Indiana 
Volunteer Infantry makes a striking figure, as he swings into 
line, with his ringing shout : " Come on, boys ! we've never 
been licked yet, and we won't begin now. " 

His men called their valiant, small-framed leader, " Little 
Ben." He v/on their hearts for the thoughtful tenderness that 
Avas like a woman's. They had seen him after the fierce battle 
of New Hope Church, in the " little frame house " to which his 
wounded men had been borne, throw off his coat, roll his 
sleeves to his elbows, and set himself at work stanching their 
wounds. The candles poured a dim, wavering light over the 
scene — over ghastly faces and figures of brave men lying 
smitten and helpless all around — over their colonel as he 
moved rapidly among his wounded soldiers, intent only on 
relieving their sufferings. Hour after hour he worked on, and 
did not cease until, after midnight, the surgeons appeared. 

One other scene deserves a place even in this slight record. 

During the last winter of the war the 70th Indiana Regi- 
ment was encamped near Nashville. At one time the cold was 
terrible. " A storm of snow and sleet came on. The earth 
turned to a sheet of ice." Soldiers were frozen stark on the 
picket lines. Others never recovered from the cruel exposure 
of those nights. During one of these Colonel Harrison left his 
own warm quarters, and went out into the cold and darkness, 
carrying a can of hot coffee among the freezing pickets. " He 
was afraid," he said, "that the men would perish, and he knew 
the hot coffee would keep them alive." 

If it seems like a homely act, hardly becoming the dignity of 
history — well, my reader, just put yourself for a moment in the 



Benjamin Harrison. "^Il 



place of those freezing men on picket in tliat long-ago winter 
night at Nashville ! 

When the war closed General Harrison — he had been pro- 
moted to the rank of Brevet Brigadier-General — returned to 
Indianapolis. The true soldier always makes a good citizen. 
He now resumed his law practice. He had, however, won his 
first political honors before he went to the field, and in 1864 he 
was re-elected to the office of Reporter of the Supreme Court. 

Three years afterward he declined a third nomination, as his 
ofiicial duties interfered seriously with his professional work. 
But his experience during the war had, no doubt, intensified his 
Republicanism, for he took a prominent part in both the "Grant 
campaigns," and at that time addressed frequent and large 
audiences throughout the State. 

In 1876 he absolutely declined the nomination for Governor 
of Indiana. But the times were critical. The Republicans 
regarded it vastly important to carry the State for their presi- 
dential candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. A great pressure was 
brought to bear on General Harrison, and he was at last forced 
to accept the nomination. The Democrats, however, won the 
election. 

In the famous National Convention of 1880, at Chicago, 
General Harrison's name was suggested for nomination to the 
Presidency, but he positively declined to enter the lists and 
threw all his influence into General Garfield's scale. 

Honors and fame now fell rapidly to General Harrison. He 
was offered a seat in the Garfield Cabinet, but declined that, 
because he had, after the presidential election, been unanimously 
chosen to the United States Senate, where he served his country 
for the next six years with conspicuous ability. 

In 1884 his claims to the presidential office were again dis- 
cussed. The National Republican Convention, which met in 
Chicago, June 19th, 1888, nominated General Harrison for the 



378 Our Presidents. 



Presidency. He was, after a campaign conducted on both sides 
with a quiet and good taste in marked contrast to the stormy 
ones which had preceded it, elected in the following November. 

The story so scantily related here belongs to an earnest, 
manly, well-balanced character, to a life ennobled by high 
and worthy purposes, and loyal in all places and to all duties. 

It will fall to General Harrison's lot, if God wills, to take, 
on the 4th of next March, that sacred oath of office which his 
grandfather took, forty-eight years before. 

But Benjamin Harrison appears never to have had the 
slightest feeling that the world owed him anything because he 
was the grandson of that grandfather. Indeed his sense of 
his own debt to his day and generation has perhaps been most 
fitly expressed by that gallant old "Noblesse oblige." 

Mrs. Harrison is a lady of fine presence and intelligent and 
attractive countenance. In a little while she will become the 
representative of American womanhood to the world. But one 
wonders whether, amid all the pomp and splendor of the White 
House, her memories will not sometimes go back to dwell fondly 
on that little " three-roomed, one-storied house " where she 
lived the romance of her youth ; whether her heart will not 
sometimes yearn, amid all the grandeur about her, for the old 
simple quiet and happiness. 

It is the glory of our country that the lowly home was the 
way, like Abraham Lincoln's cabin, to the White House. 



l.RBMy'27 



